


Tate no Yuka

by Nightheart



Category: Juuni Kokki | Twelve Kingdoms, 盾の勇者の成り上がり - アネコユサギ | Tate no Yuusha no Nariagari | The Rising of the Shield Hero - Aneko Yusagi
Genre: Gen, If it's not one world, Is salty, Salty Yuka, Sassy Yuka, She is Done. So Done., Why is this her life?, Yuka the Sassmaster, it's another!
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-07
Updated: 2021-01-24
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:41:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 38
Words: 145,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23054134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nightheart/pseuds/Nightheart
Summary: Yuka Sugimoto thought her adventures in world-hopping were over with, and she was fully ready to settle down to a nice quiet life of video games and fantasy novels, there the most dangerous thing she ever had to deal with was a papercut.So of course the multi-verse had other plans.It looks like Fate isn't done jerking her around just yet. Destiny gets it wires crossed sends her to yet another world, this time to be a Shield Hero. Yuka is at first excited by the prospect of getting to be the Hero of the story this time, instead of just a villainous side-character. It goes about as well as you'd expect.Faced witht eh prospect of the story screwing her over yet again, Yuka decides she's going to write her own story!
Comments: 75
Kudos: 128





	1. Not This Again!

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this on my hard-drive for like... a year and a half, maybe two. It was back before the anime came out ( I don't want to sound like a hipster but, I was writing Sheild Hero before it got cool!). I liked the manga a lot and one day the idea of, "what of it was Yuka from Twelve Kingdoms that got pulled over instead?" got into my head and wouldn't get out again. Given how feisty she was on the 12 Kingdoms, and how much trouble she'd gotten into, I couldn't see things going any other way than just SASS and SALT everywhere.
> 
> She'd probably take one look around her and be like that pissed off cat swimming in the flood. Just so pissed.

The last thing anyone wants to be is a spear-carrier in someone else's grand opera of life, but that was me, Yuka Sugimoto.

Yes, _that_ Yuka Sugimoto.

The one who went to the Other World with the red-headed stepchild of our class, thinking that she was the hero of the story, only to be turned into the villain (and not even the _main_ villain, but like, a side-obstacle villain so the hero can learn an important lesson about her life, which is just... _demeaning_ really).

See, I'm a bit of a fantasy-nerd. I admit it. I love the books, I love the games, I love the TV shows and anime. It wasn't such an unreasonable expectation for me to think that I was _supposed_ to be the hero of the story. After all, let's face it, nice as she is, Nakajima from back then had all the backbone of a jellyfish and all the raw courage of certain barnyard poultry. You couldn't reasonably expect that someone who looked like they couldn't sort one end of the sword from the other, and wanted to run away crying just when things were starting to get good, would possibly wind up being the heroine of the story.

I suppose you can't judge a book by its cover... though I admit I do it all the time. Maybe I should work on that. 

Anyway, too-nice, timid little Youko Nakajima (who'd never stood up for the outcast when she was being bullied nor told people off when they were blatantly taking advantage of her) turned out to be the Chosen One. That, of course, left _me_ to be the idiot who only _thought_ she was going to be special. I'll admit that it still stung a little. I tried to look at it as a learning experience, something that would make me a better person. I'd already had a hard look in the mirror, and had to face up to some truths about myself; namely that I could be hard, ruthless, stubborn and utterly convinced of my own rightness once I'd decided on something. I'd also been told I was sharp, and feisty and "kind of a bitch." And when your therapist calls you a bitch to your face, you know you should probably take a good look at your life choices.

In my defense, when you're bullied and picked on all of the time, it's hard to feel empathy for anyone. I mean, why would you? When all they do is betray and laugh at you. I was working on it though, trying to get better at connecting with other people. I even went to therapy like my parents asked me to.

My parents, by the way, were _less_ than thrilled with my having disappeared for an entire summer and some change. They all thought that I'd run off with my boyfriend and then lied about it when I came home. Needless to say there was no heartfelt, tearful family reunion in my house, rather... they just wanted to sweep their little family embarrassment under the rug. I'd made the mistake of telling my parents the crazy truth about my adventures in the other world, naively thinking they'd believe their only daughter. Well, _that_ didn't happen. After they sent me off to another school on the other end of the country, they bribed me into attending therapy sessions with money for books and video games. I didn't come back to any heartfelt words of having been missed, but rather an admonishment not to let my grades slip and to try not to embarrass them by being crazy. As of a year ago, my parents have basically washed their hands of their crazy, delinquent daughter but on the bright side, at least I get my own student apartment, and an allowance to spend on books and games so that they can concentrate all their hopes on their other, _normal_ child without having to feel guilty about it.

See what I mean about my personality?

"Be nice, Yuka. Be nice, Yuka. Be nice, Yuka. Smile..."

That's my new mantra. My therapist has gently suggested that it would be good for me to try to mix better with my peer group. To that end, she says I should try to concentrate on how I present myself to others so that I seem a little more approachable.

My reaction to this was to say 'You mean I'm _not_ a warm cuddly ball of sweetness and fluff set upon this world to bring sunshine and unicorns to the masses? _Whaaaat_?'

I'm pretty sure that my parents are secretly paying her to try to brainwash me.

: _But hey... maybe that means they haven't completely given up on me after all.:_

There see? I can be an optimist! I'm not at all bitter about being essentially abandoned and swept under the rug. Not me. Never. Ha. Ha.

_:Anyway.:_

After almost a year back in this world, I've mostly readjusted. Or rather, it seems I've fallen back on all my favorite old hobbies of reading fantasy novels and playing RPG video games. You'd think that having more or less "lived the dream" (which actually turned out to be something of a _nightmare_!) and having the realities of what it _really_ means to be on your own in a strange world with a "destiny" riding you, would have cured me of my love of those sorts of things as a means to escape.

Well, you'd be wrong. 

Look, I know in excruciating detail exactly how much it _sucks_ to be stuck out in the cold, with no food, no shelter, and hunted by monsters or witchunters, and possibly prey to bandits. When it rains and you crouch under a tree and shiver, feeling sorry for yourself and just wanting to go home because it's awful and your stomach hurts from hunger. Or that time when I was nearly _sold_ to a _brothel_ because _stupid_ _Youko_ wanted to _trust_ people. But even thought I know the realities of the situation, strangely it makes me appreciate the escapism and suspension of disbelief even more. I like exploring a new world through an avatar because I can do it _comfortably_. It's not me having to suffer through all the horrible things that happen when you go on adventures, it's the poor bastard in the pages of the book! I can go make myself a nice pot of hot tea, grab an extra blanket, and enjoy the adventure from my nice comfy futon.

: _But I think instead of reading in bed all day today, I think I'll go to the gym and get some excersize in_ ,: I thought.

I still kept in shape from my training as an assassin in the Other World, because if I laid around in bed all day reading books and playing video games I'd get fat and loose my charming complexion. A nice work out at the gym also helped me get some of that repressed anger and bitterness out of my system, and, just in case I needed to kill someone, my skills were still sharp. The girls at my new school had started some rumors about me having killed Youko and my boyfriend for cheating on me, and I took a mean sort of pleasure by keeping them guessing about it. They didn't like me, and they sure didn't try to make friends, but at least they left me alone this time. I told myself that I could live with that, that it was actually an improvement over before, but even I didn't believe it.

_:Nevermind, Yuka,:_ I told myself. _:Just get a new book and forget about it.:_

No I wasn't filling the empty void in my life where human contact should be with empty distractions, I was happier this way. Really. It was a lot less hassle when people kept thier distance. Who needed friends? I had plenty of things to do.

So after my workout that morning I headed down to the local library to see if there was anything new in the stacks. On my way back to my territory, i.e. the fantasy section, I bumped into a young man who had "college-student otaku" written all over him. He had green eyes and dark, messy hair, and he was handsome, in a plain sort of way. He wore a nondescript hoodie and didn't seem to have any charisma at all. He looked like a typical broke college student. We excused ourselves politely, bowing to each other, and I pushed past him, bumping into the shelf and knocking a loose book onto the floor.

"Sorry about that," I said, bending over to pick up the book before her could reach for it.

"Oh it's no problem, young miss," the young man assured me.

We bowed again and each continued on our separate ways.

I glanced down at my new find, curious. I didn't recognize anything about it so it wasn't a new bestseller. In fact, the book looked rather old. I wasn't sure if that was just the aesthetic that the publisher had decided on or if the book had genuinely been stuck on the shelf long enough to grow ancient and dusty. There was a circular sigil on the faux-leather front cover of embossed gold with what looked like four weapons over-top a celtic-knot like design lacing them together.

_:Hm. This looks interesting,:_ I thought.

The title revealed that it was called the "Weapons of the Four Saints." Intrigued now, I wandered down the aisle to find a private seating arrangement without a backward glance at the young man I'd just bumped out of the way, and sat down to read it.

Scanning the first few sentences revealed that the book detailed a fantastic parallel world, with a prophecy foretelling its doom by way of terrible "waves of calamity" that would befall it, sending demons pouring out of rifts in reality to destroy the world. Once the "Time of Prophesy" (capitol letters) was upon them, the rulers of the kingdoms in that world would summon four great Heroes to fight the monsters of the Calamity. Each Hero would be blessed with a powerful Legendary Weapon unique to them; a sword, a lance, a bow and a shield.

I snorted a bit scornfully.

_:That premise is a bit overused, isn't it?:_

I could practically smell the harem from where I was. 

_:And what kind of good would a Shield do as a weapon?:_ I wondered to myself. _:What's that poor sucker going to do with it to defeat the monsters, pound them into submission?:_

I decided I'd read enough. I'd already been on one world hopping adventure, and I wasn't interested in reading a story where someone else succeeded whereas I'd gotten shafted by Fate, thanks. I'd go read something else.

I was about to put down the book as another boring ordinary-boy-goes-to-another-world-for-a-harem fantasy, but curiosity tugged me onward. I supposed could at _least_ finish the first chapter so see if the hero was at least a little bit interesting. So I kept reading. When I turned the page I discovered, to my great shock that it was blank! In fact, it was a little more than blank... it was starting to _glow_.

Softly at first, just enough to make me surprised, then the glow intensified to a great white flash!

"Oh come on!" I shouted as I was enveloped in white light and a source-less wind pulled me towards the expanding pages of the book. "Not _again_!"


	2. The Legendary Heroes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Yuka Is Summoned as the Shield Hero, Meets Her Fellow Heroes, and Get's A BAD FEELING ABOUT THIS.

**In case anyone is wondering how Yuka feels right now... this cat is Mood.**

* * *

I opened my eyes and blinked hard to clear them from the light-blindness. I was crouched in a huge chamber tiled with different colors of stone; green, yellow, red and blue divided the domed chamber into quarters. Glowing brightly around my feet was some strange looking alchemy-array-like design on the floor that looked like the writers had ripped off Full Metal Alchemist. There was a whole group of old men with robes and long beards staring at us as though they couldn't believe we were standing there. When I say we, I mean that I was not the only person standing in that circle. There were three boys wearing modern-style clothes ranged beside and behind me. One of them, holding a large, plain-looking spear with a red jewel in it, looked like a a classic playboy. Another boy, holding a sword with a blue jewel in it, had this sort of cool aura about him, and the third one, holding a bow with a yellow jewel in it, looked like the proverbial cinnamon roll. Oh... and there was a shield stuck to my arm. A Shield with a green jewel in the center of it. I immediately tried to pull it off, but it stayed stuck to me and wouldn't budge. 

I sighed.

_:You gotta be kidding me,:_ I thought in dismay. _:Again? Flippin' **again**? Once wasn't enough, but I have to have my life disrupted **twice** by these world-hopping shenanigans? Knock it off already!:_

Dammit. It felt like I had just gotten home from a hellish journey wherein people tried to kill me, trick me, or use me, and someone nearly _sold me to a brothel_ , not to mention I got trained to be someone's killing pawn! I'd went back to a nice, peaceful life where the most dangerous thing I did all day was play video games... and now _this_.

: _These assclowns had better send me back home,_ : I thought to myself in irritation, ignoring the pleased, and wonder-filled looks of my comrades.

They only looked that way because they didn't know how this shit went down, they were all still spoon-fed on those dumb books they probably read.

"Please! Brave Saint Heroes, save our world!" the, (I'm assuming they must have been) priests cried in leading tones, bowing all the way down for us.

_:No. No. No. No....:_ I thought in dismay. _:This isn't happening.:_

I pinched myself, hard, and felt nothing. Odd. I perked up with the optimistic thought that maybe I was dreaming after all! I tried again to pinch myself into wakefulness, but sadly... I stayed asleep.

_:Nuts, looks like I'm not alseep.:_

It was just my bad luck that I got pulled into someone else's problem again and they were gonna make it mine, whether I liked it or not.

"Please, Sainted Ones," the head preist (or at least the guy with the fanciest robe and silliest hat) said. "Time grows short for our kingdom, this blessed land of Melomarc. Already one wave of calamity has struck our fair kingdom, and it was barely suppressed by our own knights and adventurers. The hourglass is already running on the time that the next wave of calamity will occur. You must save us!"

"Nice!" one of the boys, the play-boyish-looking one with the ponytail who probably went to great lengths to rock that carelessly rumpled but cool look.

_:No. No it is not nice,:_ I corrected him mentally. _:I just got home. This is **unfair** , is what it is. I don't wanna go out and face calamity, I wanna stay home, play games, read books and eat delicious food.:_

Regardless of my thoughts, we were all hustled out of the room we had all been summoned into without so much as a 'by your leave, if you don't mind,' and led down an impressive looking hall in a typically medieval looking castle. Frankly, as nice as the castle was, I'd seen better looking ones in some of the other kingdoms, but my new companions, at least, seemed suitably impressed. I smothered a yawn. The King of En could have fit the entire castle in his back-court garden.

On our little foray across the castle grounds, I noticed something odd in the behavior of the priests what made me instinctively raise my guard a little. The seven priests were all treating the three guys in the group with kid gloves, bowing and scraping and buttering them up with compliments on them and their shine new Legendary Weapons, offering them refreshments and generally brown-nosing them. However when they looked at me, their attitudes changed. Significantly. Like in a way that was impossible to miss or brush off as paranoia. Their gazes deliberately skipped past me and when I asked a question, I was talked over and ignored. One of them even grimaced like he'd smelled something distasteful. I wasn't sure if it was medieval sexism or what, but it put my back up.

I was not ten minutes in this world and I was already having _enough_ of this.

_:I assume that the King's the one who ordered us summoned here, let's see if he can just Wizard of Oz me home again.:_ I thought, rolling my eyes.

The overly-ostentatious throne room looked like someone was trying to overcompensate for something. Everything it had, it had too much of. Table piled with food? No, they'd have _three_ tables and huge pig on a spit. Fancy red carpet? He needed one trimmed with gold and silk tassels. Animal heads? He uses antlers in all of his decorating. It was a little bit ridiculous.

We were brought before an old, bearded guy wearing a man-dress and sitting on a fancy chair. He looked familiar to me.

: _Huh...:_ I thought, looking at the king on his throne. _:I don't like this...:_

I immediately felt a shiver of alarm run through me. I'd met kings before, good ones and corrupt ones both, and this guy was giving me _bad vibes_ all the way. It could be that he bore a marked physical resemblance to the King of Kou, whom I had served without question much to my everlasting shame and regret, but I didn't think that was the only reason that my instincts screamed that he was not to be trusted. I tried to reason with myself, as there was no-sense making enemies needlessly.

_:Be nice, Yuka. You remember how much judging people before you've talked with them got you into trouble before? Maybe this guy really is a good king, and it's just your own bad experience twisting how you look at him. Be_ nice _, Yuka,:_ I admonished myself.

If nothing else, I lacked information, and that lack of info was part of what had landed me in trouble in the Other World in the first place. If I'd known that only the Kirin could pick the King, I might not have fallen for Kou's lies. I needed a way to gather intelligence on my own and come to my own conclusions. Experience had taught me that sometimes kings lied, and they lied _a lot_. It was better to try to seek out a more trustworthy, independent source of information to verify what he said. I'd play along for now, but I decided then and there that anything this guy told me was going to be immediately suspect. After all, he might have his own reasons for feeding us only the information he wants us to know. Kou-ou had certainly done that.

I stood next to the other four fellows I'd been dragged into this world with and waited for the king to speak.

"Four Sainted Heroes!" he said in a deep yet creaky sort of voice, as though he were striving for dignified tones but wasn't gifted with it naturally. "I am the country's king, Aultcray, the thirty-fifth King of Melomarc. You have my royal permission to raise your heads in my presence."

_:Who the hell's bowing to **you**?:_ I wondered, irritated.

None of us were bowing. In fact, the playboy-looking guy with the spear stepped forward.

"I hope you're planning on compensating us for our time after you so rudely summoned us all here without our permission."

"Indeed," the cool-looking kid with the sword added a half-hearbeat later. "It seems that you're asking us to face great danger on your behalf and all on your own whim. We might be granted these weapons, but it does not necessarily follow that were are in any way obligated to fight your battles for you."

_:Listen to these kids. Still, it's good to see them go for the upper hand. That at least should keep us from being taken advantage of or turned into this guy's puppets,:_ I thought approvingly. 

It was clear that the king was trying to keep us cowed by keeping us all off guard and dependent upon him for succor. Indeed, at their bold pronouncements the Kou-ou look-alike king choked a bit and turned red with dismay. He wasn't expecting us to put up any resistance, much less use our new-found status as leverage. If they hadn't said anything I would have, that just reserved the right of silence for me. I'd rather watch and wait given an option.

"You will of course, be duly compensated," the king replied regally. "I will have lodging and appropriate funds prepared for each of you. Now, I would learn your names."

"I'm Motoyasu Kimura, I'm 21 years old and enrolled in university," the pony-tail wearing playboy with the spear said.

"I'm Itsuki Kawasumi," a bow-wielder who looked too pure an innocent for the world said. "I'm 16 and in high school."

"And I'm Ren Amaki," the cool-looking sword-weilder with the dark hair and indifferent demeanor said. "I'm also in high school."

"Very good, Sainted Heroes," the kind said, eyes sliding right past me like I wasn't even in the room.

_:Oh wait,:_ I thought, recognizing that look with a feeling of dread. 

Kou-ou had used _that_ look, that _exact_ look, on me when he was giving me orders. It was the sort of look that said there was a distasteful, repugnant thing in the room that he had to deal with, and he wished it were done with quickly.

I was a distasteful thing again. 

_:Oh hells no!:_ I thought vehemently. _:I am not going through this again.:_

"You kids can do what you want," I said loudly, deepening my voice and enunciating clearly so every last person in the throne room could hear me perfectly. "But I ain't havin' _any_ of this noise. You boys can just send me right back to my life. Like _now_."

You could have heard a pin drop. The other three kids brought here with me looked at me in shock. The king looked about to wet himself and all his priests exchanged looks. I stared right back at them, not giving ground. I wasn't a fool, there was probably a catch in this somewhere, and I wasn't having it. I wanted my quiet, peaceful life back and I wasn't interested in sticking around for whatever was going to happen when the other shoe dropped.

"Sainted hero of the... shield," the king said, looking like the word itself was disgusting to him. "You were brought to this world in order to fight the Calamity--"

"Yeah well _un_ bring me then," I interrupted.

I had to keep the upper hand.

"I fear that is... impossible, mi'lord," one of the preists said shakily.

_:Wait... mi' **lord**? They think I'm a...:_ I paused, looking down at myself. _:Oh, that's why.:_

They thought I was a boy like the rest of new Heroes. I was dressed in the raggy, loose pants, the loose shirt and thick hoodie that I wore to my excersize that morning. I had on a sports bra underneath, which made my already less than spectacular endowments on my chest look all but nonexistent, so they couldn't tell that I was anything other than just an unusually short boy. 

_:Hey!:_ I thought to myself, feeling slightly offended. _:I'm not masculine! How could you mistake me for a--:_

I then looked over at my other companions. While it was true that they were all taller than me, one of them was so bishonen that he could have cosplayed as a girl easily and no-one would have been able to tell the difference. In fact, if he had cross-dressed he might be even prettier than _I_ was! The sword carrier, Ren, looked like a delicate young lady. Itsuki wasn't all that far behind him in the femininely masculine department. With a little work, and some spectacular make-up, he'd have been able to pass as a girl too! Maybe it shouldn't be surprising then, that they just assumed I was a boy like the rest of them. I opened my mouth to correct them, then paused.

_:Remember what happened the **last** world you were on Yuka?:_ I reminded myself sternly. _:You were nearly sold to a brothel as a sex slave, idiot! You don't know what these people are like or how they treat women. Just keep your mouth shut about the girl thing for now, and if all goes well you can all have a laugh about it later.:_

It was probably better to play it safe for now, I got a funny feeling somehow that these people already had it in for me and they didn't even know my name. Best not to make trouble for myself.

"Once the Four Sainted Heroes have been summoned," the priest went on while I adjusted my world-view. "They cannot be sent home until the Calamity has ended."

I remained silent, mulling that one over. That sucked, it looked like I was stuck here. I noted that they didn't say how long it would be before the Calamity was over.

"So what's your name, shorty?" the playboy, Motoyasu, said over to me.

I noted absently that the king did not look pleased at even having to hear my name. I made an instant decision to keep my femininty to myself for the time being. After all, if they made an assumption, it would be foolish of me not to take advantage of it. A girl couldn't be too careful, that was one thing I'd learned.

"Sugimoto," I said brusquely, deepening my voice and carefully using the masculine form of address. 

_:If nothing else, I suppose it means I won't have to worry about getting hit on for a while,:_ I thought. _:That guy with the pony-tail looks like a playboy and I'd really just rather not have to deal with that right now.:_

"Sainted Heroes," the king said, trying to bring the conversation back under his control. "I will need everyone to confirm their status."

I frowned in puzzlement, wondering what he meant. The three other boys all made individual noises of surprise and wonder and I looked clueless back at them, wondering what it was all about. Itsuki kindly offered to explain. Nice kid.

"It should look sort of like an icon in the corner of your vision. Just concentrate your attention on it," he said helpfully.

"Oh, thanks," I said a bit awkwardly. 

It was sort of tucked back in the very corner of my vision and as soon as I turned my attention to it, it popped to the center and then expanded into a full screen. It showed me a body-veiw of my "character" with the "equipment" I had (or did not have) equipped into each slot, and a screen that showed my stats. It had the standard ones; attack, defense, agility, Hp, Mp. There was a skills menu, an items menu, a magic menu, and a help icon. Interesting. The balance of my stats was weighted ridiculously heavy toward defense, with almost nothing in any other category, besides HP and some agility. Most importantly the screen showed that I was "Shield Hero: Level 1" and that I had "Small Shield (Legendary Weapon)" equipped. 

"Huh, kinda like a video game," I murmured aloud.

"It basically is," Ren said with a knowledgeable demeanor (and a slightly condescending smirk). "It's just another VRMMO. I haven't heard of it, so this one must have slipped under the radar. So far, the effects are so-so. I hope they do something unique with the story-line, otherwise this is going to be boring."

"It must be an open beta," Motoyasu agreed with him.

"Yeah," Itsuki chimed in, nodding knowledgeably. "It's Emerald Online, right? I thought it looked familiar."

I looked back blankly at them. These boys actually thought they were in a video game. This wasn't Sword Art Online, there was no such thing as virtual reality. We were still decades behind that technology. There was something fishy going on here.

"Um... you guys. I don't know if you all hit your heads or something, but I'm pretty sure this isn't actually a game despite the appearances. Maybe a weird dream, but..."

They all looked back at me with various pitying looks and I felt myself get defensive. 

"How can you not recognize it?" Ren asked, smirk growing. 

"It sounds a bit like like the world in that book I was reading," I replied. "But I don't know of any games that are like this."

I kept the information about the lack of Virtual Reality in my world to myself as a separate issue for the moment and quickly explained to them about the book I'd found in the library. They dismissed my claim with a shrug, saying that it was probably a game manual or cheat-book. 

_:I do **not** use **cheat** books,:_ I thought, my gamer pride slightly offended. _:I can scam the system just fine on my own ingenuity thank you very much.:_

"And speaking of which," Itsuki asided in a whisper to Motoyasu that I could hear perfectly clearly and was probably meant to. "That guy has a _shield_."

_:It's more than what I had the first time I went to another world,:_ I thought at them both, looking down at my legendary weapon with a budding feeling of fondness. _:I don't see what his problem with it is.:_

The first time I'd visited the world of the Twelve Kingdoms, I know I'd have given a lot for a way to defend myself, no matter how crude. If I couldn't have a sword, a shield would certainly have been welcome. It was nice to start out with a bit of an advantage.

_:I level this thing up and no-one can touch me, I'll be an invincible god!:_

"Well that's too bad, poor guy," Motoyasu replied to Itsuki as they both looked over at me with looks that mixed condescension, pity and disdain. 

"Yeah," Ren added unnecessarily. "Everyone knows that the shield is a useless relic as a class. They do well in the beginning but always end up as trash for the endgame. There's no balancing for them."

I scowled back, rubbing the surface of my shield protectively and trying not to feel the smallest twinge of envy for their very lovely and cool-looking weapons. Honestly, what was with that pity on their faces? Shields could be cool... sort of. I'd been a dual-sword wielder in the Twelve Kingdoms, so I rather wondered how it was possible that I was the one who rolled such a weird Legendary Weapon, but there was no need to look down on me for it. My defense was off the flippin' chain!

_:Besides, haven't these guys ever heard of tanking?:_ I wondered to myself. _:The Tank is both the frontline **and** the backbone of the party. Who else would establish the order of battle, and keep the mobs off the squishy mages, if not the tank? I wonder how it is they play?:_

I had often rolled a tank for the RPG's I played in, as I liked to be at the front of the action, and the tank class, with all of it's various challenges, was more interesting to play than just stabby-stabby. If you had a good tank, that knew how to do their job well, your party was well on its way to becoming legendary.

_:The only thing more important than an effective tank is a good healer. If anything, those three boys are the ones with classes that come a dime a dozen!:_

Sure, some fighters were better at it than others, but DPS was common. Any moron could stab. A good tank was a treasure. I prided myself on my adeptness with the many requirements of the class and with my excellent reputation as a top tank in my RPG's. It wasn't so much that I was protective of people, I wasn't, but I liked to be out front and I liked the praise that came from doing my work well. These guys were just weird.

Anyway, I supposed it didn't matter. It looked like I couldn't go home for a while, so I supposed I'd better see about making myself an effective tank so that I could just get through this and they'd send me back.

_:Sheesh, I'm wasting my youth in other worlds, this keeps up I'm going to loose my citizenship!:_


	3. I'm Going on...An Adventure!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Yuka Is Picked Last, Has Her BAD FEELING Confirmed, and Is Saddled With A New Companion.

The king decided to let us all eat and sleep in the magic-medieval equivalent of a five-star-suite (though, of course, it was fairly crude by the standards I was accustomed to). Interestingly, the maid who came to attend my room was what I would have called a hanjuu in the world of the Twelve Kingdoms. She seemed to treat me better than anyone else in this kingdom had so far, but oddly, the human maids, when they came in to use magic to summon water into my bath, all seemed to glare at me like I was detestable for even existing.

: _Whatever_ ,: I grumbled to myself as I bathed. : _I'm not here to make friends, though it would be nice to have at least one, good friend. I just have to survive until I can go home._ :

My shield automatically shrank down to the size of a large bangle while I bathed, keeping itself out of the way.

After my bath, I joined up with the other Legendary Heroes in Ren's suite and we discovered, by all saying the name of the prime minister of Japan at once, that we all came from alternate worlds! So that solved the mystery of how they spoke as the VRMMO's were a real thing and not just science fiction. After a short while of getting to know each other, we parted to sleep until the king could summon us all again in the morning to receive the parties we would train, or I suppose in this case, level up, with.

_:I'm actually kind of looking forward to it,"_ I thought to myself as I settled in to sleep for the night.

I was always treated better online than I was in real life. Online, I was the tank, the backbone of the party. I kept everyone safe and people praised me and called me "big sister" because online I sort of role-played the type of person who looked out for her team-mates and cared for them. I was actually fairly popular, maybe not legendary as a high-ranked player, but certainly reputable and well thought of. I treated those I partied with well, observed and enforced proper loot-dividing etiquette, and kept everyone safe.

_:Maybe if I try that here, I can actually make some friends of my own!:_ I thought with a small, anticipatory feeling of optimism.

At home, my reputation preceded me, and everyone already knew what I was like so I was always on the utside looking in, but here... I could have a fresh start!

_:I can hardly wait for the morning! I hope I get a good party!:_ I thought in hopeful anticipation of something in my life actually going my way for once.

"You may now enter," the kind said to one of his nearby lackies.

The door at the opposite end of the throne room burst open to reveal a whole crowd of people dressed up in fancy-looking armor, carrying different kinds of swords, lances, arrows, staves and hammers. It looked like the lobby of a guild before a raid in an MMORPG like Warcraft or something similar.

"Who are they?" Itsuki asked the king.

"These are the kingdom's finest adventurers assembled to aid you on your journeys," the king said, sounding as though he was being magnanimous and he expected us all to congratulate him for it.

_:Well I'm not falling on my knees to kiss your ring anytime soon,:_ I thought stubbornly.

Over breakfast in the great hall, the king had continued to ignore me, and treated me as something he'd rather would just disappear. Even the other Heroes had seemed to catch on to it a little, or at least Ren did. He seemed like a pretty perceptive guy, for all of his aloofness, he struck me as the sort of person who didn't miss much. The other two, the staff-guy and the bow-kid, were sort of self-centered in their own ways. I observed over breakfast the Motoyasu, the Spear Hero, would flirt with anything in a skirt. He was outgoing and charismatic, but also kind of biased about women, not misogynistic exactly but put women on pedestals instead of treating them like people. The bow-kid seemed pretty harmless. Quiet but very careful to treat everyone fairly, the thing that stood out the most about him was how liked to stick up for the little guy. It looked like the bow suited him very well, because he seemed to view himself as a Robin Hood type. However, when the king blatantly was rde to me, i noticed that he didn't speak up for me, so perhaps I was attributing too much, or maybe he was just hypocritical when it came to standing up against the powerful.

"I expect you all to fight well together and quickly gain strength to defend us against the Calamity!" the King added.

_:Just who was it that dragged me here against my will in the first place?:_

I was already feeling rebellious about the whole thing. It was clear to see from looking at the other three that they were all experienced gamers of one sort or another who all thought that this was some kind of new adventure-game. I'd already been on one other world adventure in which I risked my life and went through hell, I wasn't all that keen to start another. One of my new comrades was three years my senior and he looked like a little kid to me in terms of maturity. They all did. I felt like the seasoned veteran being told to babysit the newbies.

_:It doesn't occur to these guys to even ask the most pertinent question of all,:_ I thought, rolling my eyes at their density. _:If this is a game, where's the re-spawn point?:_

There probably _was_ no respawn point. That was such an obvious staple of gaming it wouldn't have occurred to them to even ask about it, they'd just assume it. But if there was no respawn point, that meant that this was actually a matter of life and death.

_:And if it's life or death, then that definitely means that this isn't a game.:_

"Why are we all receiveing different parties to fight with in the first place, I demanded so loudly that it was practically a shout.

I didn't want that particular question to be ignored.

"After all," I continued in a more normal tone. "Looking at the four of us together, we look like a well-balanced party. We have a bow for ranged melee, two mid-range DPS, and a tank. A bit of a glass cannon with no healer, but we could easily make this work."

"The Legendary Weapons react badly when the Heroes attempt to level up near each other. Leveling in proximity with Legendary Weapons impedes growth," the king explained. "Thus, you shall divide up into separate parties and go your own ways. You shall work with your volunteer teams to grow and strengthen your weapons for the second wave of Calamity."

I frowned a bit to myself. I had rather expected to travel with these guys for a while. Despite their arrogance and needless pity of me for only having a shield, they seemed like they'd be nice to work with. Maybe they were a little on the immature side but they appeared to be basically good-hearted boys. I wasn't certain that the king was telling us all the truth.

_:He might be hiding something, or trying to separate us for motives of his own,:_ I thought suspiciously, looking at him with narrowed eyes.

I'd gotten a bad vibe off him right from the start, and I didn't think that it was only because he reminded me a lot of Kou-ou, the king who'd used me and thrown me away. It would probably be wise to get as far away from him as quickly as possible.

"Now!" the King proclaimed to the adventurers at the other end of the hall. "Adventurers, select the Hero you shall attend!"

The small crowd of the kingdom's finest advanced on us as we all stood in a row, like team captains for dodge-ball practice. The adventurers were very clearly sizing us up and I wondered why since I had expected to be the one selecting my party from the crowd, instead of the other way around. The adventurers didn't take long before they began to separate out into knots and flow toward their chosen Hero. I couldn't help but notice that they all separated out and passed me by like an ugly puppy in a petshop window when there were much cuter dogs to be had.

:That's weird,: I thought to myself. :I guess they must not use the Holy Trinity of tank, healer and DPS here in this world.:

It was a bit disheartening to be so callously passed by, but not all that surprising looking at it objectively. If one had no experience with the tank role as a thing, then it would automatically appear that the one who did not have a weapon to kill monster with, would be the weakest link. Truth to tell, I was sadly used to being the last one picked, it wasn't anything new for me. And looking at the three other boys versus me, it was a fact that I'm physically the smallest, scrawniest "boy" in the group. Certainly I looked less than impressive. Add to that, the Legendary Weapon that came to me was the shield, so it would make anyone wonder what sort of fighter a shield-wielder could possibly make. Still... it stung. I tried not to let it, like usual, but it did just a little bit.

_:It'd be nice, just once, just one time in my life, that I'd get to be the one "chosen by destiny" or hell, I'll even settle for chosen to be on a team and not be regarded as the leftovers_ ,: I thought glumly.

Ren, the sword-wielder had five mixed-bag fighters. Motoyasu, the spear-wielding playboy, had four followers, all of them female. Itsuki, the bowman, had two obvious tanks and someone in a robe I assumed must be a magic wielder.

_:Hmm... interesting,_ : I thought to myself, looking at the magic-wielder. _:So magic's a thing in this world, huh? I'll have to look into that...:_

I'd have loved to be able to use magic. One of my all-time favorite animes was still an old one called Slayers. Flat-chested as I was, I'd always felt a certain kinship with Lina Inverse.

"Hm..." the king said gravely, but there was something underlying his expression...

He probably thought he was concealing his expression, but I had served in a royal court before, and I'd gotten pretty good at reading people. I tried to place the aura he was trying to conceal... it was almost as though he was feeling _satisfied_ about something, or maybe even pleased? Smug, perhaps? It was something a little bit like that.

_:There's definitely something up with this guy, and I don't like it,:_ I thought, having my instincts confirmed with his barely concealed pleasure at my misfortune.

"For the er, Shield Hero to have not attracted any followers... it must be because he lacks a certain air of reliability," the king remarked smoothly.

I narrowed my eyes at him as my temper sparked. It was a good thing that my weapon didn't seem to have any offensive capability, or that king might have just found himself with a Yuka Sugimoto problem. I forced myself to remain calm, it was more important for me to glean useful information... a guy as smug and superior as that king was being right then might let something useful slip just from underestimating me.

"It's a pity," the king sighed. "But what can be expected from the Hero of the Shield."

_: **Somebody** doesn't want their kingdom saved,:_ I growled internally, scowling at him.

My contrary streak started rising up within me. Who did this guy think he was, summoning me only to insult me? The cheek!

"Yeah," Motoyasu agreed, looking irritatingly sorrowful for me.

Spear-boy even had the balls to pat me on the shoulder in misplaced commiseration and I was half-tempted to tell him that he was about to be _eating_ that hand in a minute.

"The sheild is the weakest part of the team, right? I mean," he continued. "I've seen tons of games that are like that. Shields are defensive gear and not weapons, so even when newbie users equip them, they don't usually keep them around because it's better to attack than to defend. By endgame they're trash."

"Yeah! I've seen that too!" Itsuki piped up, wide-eyed.

"And I as well," Ren concurred. "The lack of attack abilities leaves them at a great disadvantage when it comes to leveling up, unless they're of a class that can also wield a weapon in addition."

_:What games are these guys playing?:_ I wondered to myself. _:The tank is the backbone of the party! Who else is going to aggro the enemies and keep the squishy mages and other weaklings safe from the mobs? Attackers might kill things, but the tank controls the whole battlefield!:_

Maybe it worked differently where they were from. I looked around me, noting that everyone else was looking back at me with the same sort of carefully hidden smugness the king thought that he was hiding. Some of them didn't even bother hiding the outright condescension on their faces. It was like they were taking a mean sense of satisfaction that I was being isolated and ostracized. I recognized that mean satisfaction, I'd seen it a million times on the faces of the other girls at school when they talked shit about me and snubbed me and gleefully ripped my reputation to shreds for nothing more than the fun of it.

_:But then again,:_ I reminded myself, forcing my spine to straighten and my throat to cease tightening up at the fearful and terrible feeling of being all alone in the world without anyone beside me again.

_:I've been ostracized and picked on before and I'm more than strong enough to take it and turn it to my advantage.:_ I thought, willing myself to become fierce and proud. _:All this means is that my potential pool of enemies is mysteriously bigger than I'd been hoping it would be. And perhaps the real question here is why single me out? Well, other than the fact that the universe, or multi-verse in this case, likes to find new ways to shit on me. But these priests here just went out of their way to summon me to this world, so why would they then try to alienate me?:_

All that really meant for the moment was that I'd better get the hell out of the hands of the powerful monarchs before they could make my life truly miserable. That meant getting the hell out of town. The sooner I went off on this quest, the better, and it seemed that going it alone might just be the wiser option. At least until I had a handle on just what the hell was going on.

_:At least this time I'm not completely without resources,:_ I thought, looking fondly down at my shiny Legendary Shield. : _I'm a Hero of the Shield this time around. People can't attack me, or ignore me, or sell me to a brothel, that's already an improvement over the last little "adventure" I went on! So what if no-one wants to party with me, I'm a loner anyway!:_

"It is a very great pity," the king said heavily, shaking his head.

I didn't think he sounded the least bit sorry, nor was he displeased.

_:This guy ain't foolin' me with his act. He's only putting on a show of being The Fair King. You can't fool me old man! I can see right through you.:_

All that meant to me was I'd do better to leave quickly before I could get stuck with some unwanted third wheel who was probably a spy.

"Does anyone want to volunteer to partner the Shield Hero?" the King demanded of his subjects.

It was a bit discouraging that the other adventurers all shrank behind their own selected heroes, crowding in closer so that they wouldn't be singled out for the onerous task.

: _Feh!:_ I thought scowling contrarily over at them in offense. _:Who wants your help anyway?:_

"I see," he said. "Well since you lack for any companions to outfit, it seems that I shall be required to offer compensation out of a need to hire mercenaries."

He smirked at me, not doing a very good job at hiding how pleased he was at the way things were going for me.

"You shall receive three hundred more silvers than the other heroes so that you will have some incentive to offer any adventurers that might come your way."

"Oh well!" I shouted eagerly, interrupting the king before he could pick some poor sap to saddle me with. "I guess it's thier loss."

I'm not ashamed to say to hurried over to collect my offering before he could change his mind. The attache next to the king handed me a large purse heavy with solid metal coins.

: _Nice_!:

"Look's like we're done here, so I'll just be on my way," I said, quickly moving toward the door before anyone could think to muscle in on my cash.

"I'll do it!" a light, feminine voice called out.

_:Nuts!:_

I stopped from where I'd started to head toward the door and turned to look behind. One of the girls from Motoyasu's party had separated out and was striding forward. She was pretty. Taller than me, with dark red hair and a smiling older-sisterly vibe to her. I sized her up. A boy might have been taken in by her pretty face and nicely-shaped (tightly clad) body, but I was more interested in why she suddenly decided to play nice-nice with me when only moments before it looked like she couldn't have been pulled off from that pimp Motoyasu's arm with a crowbar.

"You really don't need to do that," I said heartily, smiling a falsely bright smile at her. "You go have fun with your little friend over there. I'll manage just fine on my own."

"No matter what," she said with an angelic aura about her, like she was some kind of saint or something. "A person traveling alone is disheartening to see!"

I paused. The fear and despair-filled memories of being alone after I'd separated from Nakajima and Asano-kun and had wandered the countryside, prey to every bandit and youma and witch-hunting party in the land came back to me. Perhaps having company wouldn't be so bad. Besides, she had a sword. Swords were good when all you had was a shield.

_:Be nice, Yuka. Be nice, Yuka. Be nice, Yuka,:_ I mantra'ed at myself, reminding myself that sometimes people didn't like me because I sometimes had an stubborn, contrary and ruthless personality.

Maybe a friend would do me some good. I firmly ignored the part of me that raised an objection that the last time someone had tried to be super nice to me without apparent any reward for it was the time I'd nearly been sold to a brothel.

"If that's how you feel," I said, a bit grudgingly, but willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. "Then I accept."

I'd been burned before, now I was fairly slow to trust people who approached me with kindness for no obvious gain. Then I thought better of it, she was probably eying my coin purse, thinking she'd get to spend the extra funds on herself. Ha! I might have just arrived on this world, but mama didn't raise no fool!

"I'm Mein Sophia," she said, smiling beatifically at me as she took my arm.

I wasn't certain what to make to the subtle squish of her breasts on my bicep. I was sincerely hoping it was accidental, otherwise things were gonna get real awkward, real fast. Motoyasu looked over at Mein in concern

"Are you sure?" he asked, looking at my shield dubiously. "You'll have to do twice the work."

"I'm sure," she assured him, still smiling. "I just know this arrangement will work out in time."

I felt a small frisson of alarm inexplicably tug at me, there was something _odd_ about the way she'd said that.

_:Probably just me being paranoid,:_ I tried to calm myself. _:There's no reason why she wouldn't want to help a genuine Hero summoned to this world. I need to stop thinking that everyone's out to get me.:_

"Then," the king announced. "The funds will be distributed and the heroes may start their journeys!"

He sounded like he wanted to fire a gun into the air to announce the start of the race. Instead, we all just sort of unceremoniously shuffled out of the throne room.

We all paused at the threshold before the castle portcullis. This was where we would part ways and each of us would go on thier own separate journeys, splitting us up from being comrades summoned together by Fate or happenstance.

"Best of luck you you guys!" I called over as they turned to leave.

It didn't hurt to leave things on a good note.

"May the best weapon win!" Itsuki, the bo-wielder called.

"So I'll just be leaving you all in the dust then," Motoyasu said, preening with confidence.

Ren, remained silent, and merely headed out with his party. I was beginning to think that was typical of him.


	4. Gear Up Solid

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which the Girls Go Shopping and Yuka Discovers the Limitation of Her Legendary Weapon.

Mein Sophia was still clinging to my non-shielded arm like a limpet, but strangely, though I could see that she was squeezing her breasts on me, I couldn't feel much of anything. It looked like my defense was really high!

"So," I said. "Where should we hit up first?"

"Hit up?" she asked, cocking her head coquettishly to the side. "My lord Hero has such an unusual way of speaking."

I felt a twinge of conscience even as I ignored the way she was batting her eyes at me. I'd been dishonest with her about my female-ness from the very start and that was no way to begin a partnership. For volunteering to put up with a supposedly useless class-type, I could at least let her know the truth about my sex. If nothing else, it might make her stop flirting so transparently with me.

"Um, yeah," I said, nervously. "About that--"

My next words were cut off by her making an overly girly noise of delight (the kind you usually heard on television shows where the couple is dating and the girl really wants something and would he please get it for her?) and exclaimed

"A weapons and armor shop! Lets go and see their selection!"

I sized the place up from the outside. It was clean and looked reasonably neat. The selection they had on their display boards just outside the doors looked fine enough from where I was standing. 

"Sure," I said. "Let's have a look."

The shop was good sized, and very clean, which I very much approved of. It was filled with rack after rack of weapons of various sorts all along the walls with more racks in the center. Armor was displayed on crude wooden dummies and ranged from chainmail shirts, to full plate armor. They were made of various materials as well. I was impressed, to be honest. I'd half- expected it to be filled with low-grade, low-quality armor because in most of the games I'd played before, that was the only options available in the starting areas. 

_:I've played enough RPG's to know you never buy the very best gear your first time out,:_ I thought, browsing the less expensive selection with an eye trained for a bargain. _:After all, I still know next to nothing about how this system works and reselling gear after its been used is always at a loss. It's better to spend less money until I have more experience.:_

There was some weapons and armor that were obviously second-hand but they'd been well cared for and were nothing to turn up your nose at. Mein headed straight for the fanciest, most ornate weapons and armor in the store, the kind that had gold and jewels worked into it. 

_:Oh-ho **no** honey!_: I thought at her back as she looked delightedly at a set of overly-flittery armor that would probably cost all of our money and half the other heroes combined to purchase. _:Not happening!:_

I'd learned several hard lessons about personal finances on my adventures in the Twelve Kingdoms. The first and foremost of them being hoard your coin like a miser because you couldn't eat your armor and second-hand shops did not like parting with their own coin. It might be nice to have a new friend, but I would dump her ass in a heartbeat if she eyed my purse. Let her go mooch off from that playboy kid if that was her aim!

"Good afternoon!" the shop keeper greeted us cheerfully.

He wasn't a greasy merchant. In fact, unless I missed my guess, I'd have been willing to bet that he was the one who actually made the weapons and armor in the store. He had an open, honest-looking face and I liked him immediately. That doesn't happen often.

"Hello," I greeted him. "We are in the market for some armor and weapons that would be good to start out with. Nothing too fancy or expensive. We just want something that's durable, clean and will do its job well. Second-hand is fine, if it's been well cared for."

Mein looked back at me with a plain pout on her face as she fingered the fine outfit she had clearly decided she wanted.

"But mi'lord Sheila Hero," she protested immediately. "Wouldn't you like to show your superior gear to the other knights?"

She gestured to a fine set of mail that, I had to admit, did make me think of how good I would look wearing it. I liked a nice set of gear as much as the next adventurer. However, if there was one thing I knew, it was that when it came to starting out, the first thing I bought was probably not going to be the thing I wound up sticking with. I had to experiment first to get a feel for things and then start selecting gear once I had a better idea of what I was working with. It had taken me multiple tries with different weapons before I'd settled on the dual swords after all. I didn't know how the mechanics of my new shield's system worked, nor how I was going to work with it. Common sense said heavy armor, but I wouldn't know for certain that that was truly going to be the best way to go until I'd had a chance to try things out. It might be that light armor or something else would offer me advantages that the "sensible" gear didn't and I wouldn't now that unless I tried it out. I couldn't try it out if I spent all of my money on one purchase. In essence, it would be silly and wasteful to put all my money on my starting gear unless I was certain that a particular combination was going to be the most efficient.

"I will instead flaunt my superior wisdom to the other Heroes," I replied with a tone meant to set her in her place. "Let's not spend everything all at once, especially if we don't know for certain what we'll need."

She looked like she wanted to pout about it, but instead smiled beatifically at me and replied

"Of course! There are other thing's we'll need to buy too. Mi'lord Hero is so wise!"

I wasn't certain if she was flattering me, and if so, what reason she would have to do so. The fluttering eyelashes reminded me that she still thought I was a boy she could wrap around her little finger with empty flattery and a few well-timed bust-thrusts.

Sure enough, a moment later there was cleavage. 

_:I do gotta admire her technique though,:_ I thought half in admiration and half in envy. 

I'd probably never be able to get away with that. In fact, I didn't have any cleavage to speak of. Though I thought my figure was cute in it's petite shape, it was a sad fact that everyone else had mistaken me for a very short boy without my skirts to show off my lovely, shapely legs. I couldn't fault her for using every advantage she had to get what she wanted. In her place I might likely do the same. There was no slut-shaming happening here. 

_:You go girl,:_ I mentally congratulated her. _:Just your bad luck that I'm immune._ :

"Here, why don't you try out one of these swords to go with your shield, lad?" the shopkeeper asked good-naturedly as he presented a selection of plain serviceable blades for my perusal. 

I smiled and picked one up, delighting in its balance and the feeling of having a real sword in my hands again. It had been a while. Suddenly there was a weird vibrating feeling, a lot like an electric shock, in my hands and the sword flew out of my grip.

"Huh?"I questioned in bewilderment.

I bent down and picked up the sword, preparing to give it a practice swing when it shocked me again and flew out of my hand again. A window popped up in my vision. 

**Legendary Weapon Breach of Agreement!** It read in big, bold admonishing letters. **A Hero may not equip any other weapon with the intent to fight other than the Legendary Weapon already equipped.**

"Oh..." I said with a sinking feeling of disappointment. "It says I can't fight with any weapon but this shield. That sucks. How am I supposed to fight anything if I don't have any offensive weapons to use?"

Even tanks still used a sword!

"I'll never be able to level up this way," I said, aggrieved.

"Cheer up," Mein said cheerfully. "That's what you have me for, silly!"

I didn't dignify that with a response, honestly, the disappointment was such a blow to my feeling of anticipation that I wasn't up to dealing with her overly-bright smile. Still... we were there to buy gear. 

"How about this, mi'lord?" Mein asked innocently holding up some female armor to herself.

It was made of obviously the finest materials and though it would look nice on her, it cost way more than I was looking to spend.

"Um... maybe some other time," I said diplomatically. "We don't even have our feet under us yet. Let's save the good stuff for when we're ready for it. How about that nice leather set over there, it's very lovely too."

In fact it was _not_ very lovely by any stretch of the imagination. It was plain leather, well cared for, but it had seen better days. However, it looked like the price was right. 

"That's not..." she trailed off, looking mildly offended at me. 

This was clearly not going the way she'd intended.

"And this sword here looks like a good, sturdy blade," I said picking one of the swords that the old man running the shop had put out for me to try, and running my eyes over it knowledgeably. I would have gladly carried it into battle with me, it might be plain but it was well made. "It's sized just right for you too. Come give it a try."

Visibly pouting, Mein all but stomped over and snatched the sword from my hands. She sighed heavily, like a pouty brat, and duly gave it a few swings. She had good form, I'd give her that. Her frown lessened but she still did not look pleased. She was very obviously eying the prettier, more gold-encrusted blades with desire. 

"I suppose, it will do..." she said reluctantly. "But I'm not wearing that leather... thing."

I gave her a look of mild reproof and glanced meaningfully at the good shopkeeper whose wares she was clearly maligning with her childish behavior. 

"I am sure she means, good sir," I said. "That the fit would be inappropriately sized for her... _magnanimous_ figure."

I suppressed a smirk of amusement as the import of my words began to dawn on her.

"Are you calling me fat?!" she demanded. 

"Of course not," I said in an overly innocent tone. "One could only say that you're simply _too much woman_ for something so.... _enclosing_ my dear. No, you must remember that the trials you face might never diminish your _greatness_."

I was fairly glad that the humor of my flowery compliments, that were not actually compliments at all, went right over her head other wise I would have definitely been down one partner. 

_:Maybe someone should just label me "doesn't play well with others." I'm never going to be the hero of the story at this rate.:_

I was able to talk her into getting the sword and a decent set of chainmail, and proceeded to haggle with the vendor over every last copper bit bleeding out of my purse. No way was I going to part with my precious coin right out of the gate for anything less than the absolute necessary. I'd learned some hard lessons on the road in the Twelve Kingdoms. 

Mein, still slightly pouting with me over her less than beautiful weapons and armor, took me around to some (though I noted, not all) of the other shops. We got some potions to replenish our health and stamina and stopped for lunch at a nearby restaurant. I was surprised to note by then that I was actually quite hungry. 

"So, shall we set off to begin our journey mi'lord?" she asked me sweetly as we finished our lunch.

_:I should stop giving her such a hard time,:_ I admonished myself absently as we rose and headed toward the gate that led to the feilds outside. _:After all, she was nice enough to join me and she was the only one who did so. I suppose I should give her the benefit of the doubt. Be nice, Yuka. Be nice, Yuka. Be nice, Yuka.:_

Maybe it was just that I wasn't accustomed to someone actually being nice to me and wanting to be around me. I didn't have any friends back home and all the other girls picked on me. The only time any of them were ever nice to me was either when they wanted something from me, or when they were setting me up for a fake-out that was going to leave them all laughing at me, and me looking like a fool. I'd been burned that way more than once, so people being nice to me just made me feel hyper-paranoid and self-conscious. 

_:But you're the Hero of the Shield this time,_ : I told myself trying to talk myself out of a little mini-freak-out. : _There's every reason why she'd want to be nice to you. Every adventurer hopes to help save the world right? She makes friends with you, she gets her chance at the glory! Of course she actually wants to be your friend or something like it.:_

I was finally going to have a _real friend,_ my very first real friend. Youko didn't really count because, while we understood one another, we weren't actually close on the level of being confidants. We had never engaged in girl-talk or shared secrets or did any of the other sorts of things best girld friends supposedly did. Our relationship with one another was more like a respectful rivalry now. Mein was going to be my first close confidant sort of friend... Like another girl-friend! Someone to do girly-type things like talk about boys and kissing, and slaughter hosts of monsters with. That was a girly thing to want to do, yes? All I had to do was be _nice_ to her... and somehow not chase her off with my awful personality. If I was careful and I played my cards right, I'd have my first real secret-sharing sort of girl-friend ever!

"Sure!" I said, smiling a beatific smile back at her, and trying my hardest to look as friendly as I knew how. "Let's go!"

It took us about an hour to walk out of the rest of the town around the castle, then outside the gates and into the wide, open fields that led out to the rest of the kingdom. It was certainly pretty countryside, or it would have been if there were not little swarms of monsters everywhere. The ones I saw were sphere-shaped, had wide bear-trap mouths and mean, beady looking eyes that glowed and glared.

"What are those?" I asked Mein as we crept up carefully on our first knot of enemies.

"Those are called Yellow Balloons," she replied. "They don't do much dammage but--"

Suddenly they sighted us and zipped right over. The swarm of yellow floating menaces attacked me without mercy, clamping their mouths down on all of my limbs. One of the little buggers even chomped on my head! 

"Gaah!" I yelled in surprise and dismay as they knocked me over and started biting all over me.

I realized a moment later that my shout was more out of surprise and habit than actual pain. In fact they barely hurt at all, like the mildest itch rather than a true bite. I sorta felt a little bit silly for panicking. Mein was looking at me in mild concern and a little bit like she was trying to hold in a laugh. I suppose I couldn't blame her.

"Milord!" Mein cried in dismay. "Are you alright?"

"Huh..." I said, sitting up from where I'd fell in the grass and looking down at the chompy little pests. "That's funny, I feel fine."

I glanced down at the little shield on my arm, feeling a new fondness for it as I remembered the high defense it granted me.

"I guess that must be the power of my Legendary Weapon."

"Do you want me to get rid of them for you?" Mein questioned me.

I had a thought on that one. I had basically come out here to test out my shield's systems mechanics so I could adjust my strategy accordingly. If I knew already that I had high defense, the next logical thing would be to find out what my attack was like.

"Nah," I said, grabbing one of the spongy little monsters. "Let's see what my attack power is like. These guys are really low-level right?"

"Yes but..."

I hit it with my fist, and my fist impacted but seemed to bounce right off it. I hit it again, harder. No effect. I tried to his it as hard as I could, and kept hitting it, frustration mounting as my weak attacks seemed to have no effect on it. After a particularity frustrated blow, the stupid critter finally burst with a little pop. Panting with effort I awaited my reward. I got one, measly, lousy, stinkin' XP point. _One_. I glared at my pop-up window, feeling a bit insulted that my great efforts would yield next to no reward. Mein graciously poked at all the other little chompers with her sword and they popped instantly (instead of five minutes of pathetic and frustrated attacks). Strangely, I didn't seem to earn any EXP from her victory. How was this even supposed to work?

_:No matter, I'm sure we'll figure something out,:_ I thought to myself as I rose to my feet and smiled at my new friend. 

It had been pointed out to me by a lot of people that I seemed to frown more often than I smiled. Some had even said that they thought my scowl was the default position on my face. Well yeah, but people were less inclined to mess with me if they thought I might take offense. It felt good to smile though, and it felt good to have a reason to smile. I had a friend! A real friend, who was nice to me. Sure there was something in it for her, but if I worked at it, I was sure that even I could manage to get her to like me for real. I'd always wanted a friend, deep down. I told myself I didn't, and that trusting only got me hurt, but it was something worth noting that no matter how often the girls at school had played their stupid trick where they pretended they liked me and they wanted me to join their group only to turn around and make fun of me after they gotten me to fall for it, I couldn't seem to help hoping that this time it was for real. 

_:But this time it **is** for real!:_ I told myself fiercely, wishing to believe it with all my heart. _:You were summoned to this world and you have a Legendary Weapon and a title to prove it. You're not some accidental tag-along, you're not the pawn of some kings game to make you a rival to the real chosen one, you're the one and only Shield Hero. And she chose to come along with you. Okay, maybe not at first, but she's been nice and helpful, so she must want to be your friend too. You really can do this, Yuka. You can make a friend!:_

In my mind a hopeful little dream was born about me and my brand new, very first, best friend played out. The two of us going on adventures together slaying monsters and conquering dungeons, and eating all the best food, sitting around the campfire sharing stories, gazing up at the stars and laughing together. All those things I'd seen in movies and TV shows that I'd always wanted to do. 

_:Ooh! And maybe even matching armor too!:_ I thought, allowing myself to be happy about it.

"Mi'lord seems pleased," Mein said.

Oh, right, she still thought I was a boy. Well, I'd tell her in a little while. Maybe after dinner, I didn't want her nagging me about dieting, I'd heard sometimes girls did that too.

"Well, this is the start of our journey together," I said. "I'm happy you decided to take a chance on me. You seem pretty reliable."

"You flatter me," she said, blushing. 

_:Maybe I was laying on a bit too thick. I'll have to tone it down some,:_ I noted. 

We spent the rest of the day running around the field outside of the city testing out our equipment. Strangely, I didn't seem to gain any more EXP no matter how many stupid little demon-balloons Mein killed, but it wasn't a total loss however. Once we picked up a drop from the yellow balloon, my shield vibrated on my arm like a cell phone, and it dinged at me to get my attention. Mystified at first, I looked around to see what was causing it to act so mysteriously and I felt it tug slightly when I neared the pile of drops from the balloons. Curious now, I picked up a rubbery bit of ex-demon and brought it closer to inspect it, and the large green jewel on the center of my plain shield seemed to glow a bit and the surface of the shield gleamed and wavered. I dropped the demon drop onto the shield and the surface rippled like water and the rubber was absorbed into the shield. A window popped up before my eyes immediately.

**Yellow Sheild Unlocked!** (it read.) 

**Yellow Shield +1: 1/50 Common**  
 **Equipment Bonus +.05 Defense.**

My plain white shield changed colors to an identical yellow shield.

"Hey!" I remarked, pleased. "That must be how it works!"

"What's that?" the adventurer asked curiously.

"When I took the drop from that Yellow Balloon youma, my shield reacted sort of like it wanted to get my attention. Then, it absorbed the drop and a new shield unlocked."

I presented the yellowed shield on my arm as proof of my claim.

"It says here that it's called a Yellow Shield and that it offers a plus point five to my defense stat when I equip it."

"That truly is a wonder," Mein agreed. "Since we haven't gone very far from the castle, we should return to town for now and spend the night in an inn. We can get a fresh start in the morning."

"Sounds good," I said and we turned and headed back to the city around the castle. 

Once in town, Mein passed by all the smaller inns and taverns along the main road and went straight to what was obviously the finest inn in the city. Probably a place where nobles stayed, though I could tell that it had its share of well-to-do Adventurers too. 

: _I guess youma-slaying must be a fairly lucrative business in this world somehow. They must use the ingredients from the youma for something... maybe alchemy or potions or magic perhaps?:_

I wasn't sure, so I'd have to find out about it. 

_:Maybe I can sell off the spare parts from those little Yellow Balloons we killed earlier to augment our coin.:_

During the shopping spree to gear up earlier today I had gotten got a better sense of how the money system worked in this place.

_:After all, these war-funds won't last forever, and it would be better to be cautious with my coin now, than suffer lean times int he future. Augmenting my coin would go a long way towards defraying daily expenses.:_

The base coin worth the very least amount was a copper coin. A cheap meal could be bought for around seven to ten coppers. A nights stay at a reasonably high-standard inn, the kind that offered hot baths and private rooms, might cost eighty to a hundred coppers. A silver was worth one hundred coppers. A well-made weapon in good repair might cost four silvers, or about four hundred coppers. A gold was worth fifty silvers, or five hundred coppers. The better weapons and higher gear was almost always paid for in gold. A storage strong box in town could be rented if an adventurer did not wish to keep their coin on them.

I paid for the fine rooms out of our funds but before we went down for a meal, I turned to Mein and said

"We've picked up all these drops from our work today and they must be worth something to someone. Is there anywhere in town I could go to sell them? Like a merchant who buys them or something? It would be smart if we could augment our funds and level up at the same time."

All of the games I'd ever played had ways to make money off monster drops and everything else about this world had been sort of game-like, so it stood to reason that this would be no different.

"Mi'lord is a little cautious of his coin," Mein said, smiling that bright smile of hers.

_:Well this mi'lord once was stuck out in the wilderness, penniless, alone and afraid with no way to buy food or shelter, so yeah... coin makes the world go round! And ensures I have food in my belly.:_

"More coin buys better gear," I said. "We might not have the best gear now, but I plan to equip us well in the future, and there are other expenses in a long trip like this, such as food. It's best to keep our costs as low as possible by augmenting our allowance."

I wasn't in the business of being poor either.

"Oh very well," she sighed.

Mein led me out of the in into the twilit streets and back down the main street out of town a little ways. Less awed or overwhelmed by being part of a new magical world adventure this time, I looked around with a sharper eye. The streets were clean and neat, yes.... a bit _too_ clean. It wouldn't have seemed unusual to the other three boys perhaps, but I had been in an _actual_ medieval town before. When animals were the only mode of transportation, people rode with them and lived with them. That meant that animals did their business anywhere they pleased. That inevitably meant that there was poop in the streets. Big, smelly clods of poop everywhere, that had to be diligently cleaned up after, either by the owner or by a street sweeper of some sort. Even with that, there was always a lingering sort of smell about. There should have been dust and grime too, but everything was... clean. That was really unusual for a world in which running water was not yet a thing.

_:I wonder who's doing all the cleaning,:_ I puzzled to myself. _:Usually the king won't shell out the tax money to keep things looking as impeccable as this because he'd have to employ a small army of scrubbers and sweepers to wash everything. It's been my experience that nobles are too miserly for that too.:_

I looked around next for any sign of a city sewage system, thinking that maybe they were advanced enough to have washed it all down the drain, but saw nothing.

_:Hmmm, where does the poop go?:_ I wondered.

Setting the mystery aside I walked with Mein to a crowded market place down a side-street. It was filled with booths of vendors just like at a faire, and there were also less-well-off peddlers sitting on blankets spread out wherever there was room to the side of the street, peddling their own wares out of a backpack. Mein walked up to one fellow at a booth with chests and boxes and segmented trays stacked up behind him. The table in front of him showed all manner of odd looking things, horns and teeth and what looked like shriveled dried out parts. It was like visiting a Chinese apothecary. 

There was a guy in front of us dressed like an adventurer, and judging by the wear on his weapons, he was a regular. He handed over a bunch of pieces and parts of former youma and they haggled prefunctorily over the price. I eavesdropped shamelessly on their bargaining session, determined not to get cheated by ignorance. That had happened to me before in the Twelve Kingdoms. My next meal might no longer depend upon my bargaining skills but I wasn't here to be poor either.

Mein presented the rubbery bits of ex-demon to the vendor and he tried to tell her he'd take the lot of them off her hands for two coppers. There were twenty of them. Not a chance. 

"You sold these to that guy," I pointed to the man who'd come before us, already walking off down the street. "For a copper each."

"Well you see," the greasy merchant said, glancing at me sharply. "He's a regular. He gets a discount. I know his master."

I filed away the word master for later inquiry. It might only mean patron in colloquial use, but it could mean something far more sinister too. Like slavery. Slavery might be a thing on this world. Mein would know, surely.

"Fair enough," I acknowledged. "I'll tell you what, we can go two for a copper."

I was starting low, I was willing to go up to five for a copper, but I wasn't going to tell him that, that wasn't how haggling worked.

"Ten per copper," the merchant countered firmly.

"Do you take me for a fool?" I replied scornfully. "I'm not selling a whole days work for two coppers. Three for a copper and I'll come back to you exclusively tomorrow if you buy the lot of them tonight."

There was little better draw for a merchant that repeat business.

"You would see my wife and child starving in the streets," the merchant relied.

I looked pointedly at his pork barrel of a belly. He wasn't anywhere close to starving and I wasn't certain he had any wife or children.

"Seven for a copper," he added. 

"Four and that's my final offer."

The merchant scowled but I looked pointedly over at the peddler just down the way and said

"I'll bet that man will be happy to take my business. I'm going to be doing a lot of this you see, and he looks like he could use a regular customer."

"Hah! I'll go as low as six," the man blustered.

I shrugged and moved to walk away. Once I said final offer, I meant it. I'd learned my lesson.

"Your loss," I said, turning to walk over to the much poorer peddler down the way.

"Fine! Fine!" he protested. "Though it cost my family dearly, I will see your thievery. "But you must keep your word to return with more tomorrow. We will renegotiate then."

"Sure," I said, handing over the rubbery bits of Yellow Balloon. 

I received a small palmful of coppers in return and walked away, satisfied. I also took care to look around me at the bazaar. It was full of interesting things. I wandered over to an herbalists booth, and peered closely at the strange plants she was selling in bundles. I considered myself to be something of an amateur expert in herb lore, though in practice I could really only brew pepermint tea with ginger for an upset stomach. 

_:But judging by the fact that there's healing potions in this world, what I tend to think of as Alchemy must be a thing here. I'm betting that these herbs and monster drops have something to do with it. I'll have to see about picking up an alchemy skill. I wonder if it's something you get training for, or if there's just recipes?_ :

Sadly the light was quickly disappearing, and people were closing up their shops for the day, so there wasn't any time left for me to inquire about things like Alchemy book or magic spells. I'd reallylike to learn magic spells!

"Let's get something good to eat, Milord," Mein said, tugging me along. "There's a fine restaurant in the inn we're staying at."

"Sounds good," I said agreeably. 

I figured I could splurge a bit on the food, since she'd put up with so much already. Besides, a fine meal gave more energy, and we were going to be setting out for real tomorrow. 


	5. Coin Maketh the World Go Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Plans Are Made (and Not All of Them With the Knowledge of Our Hero) Coins Are Saved, and Things Inevitably Take a Turn For the Worst.

We sat down at a cloth covered table and Mein ordered two of the most expensive meals in the menu. They cost more than her new sword and armor combined, a whopping two silvers each! Over dinner, we rolled out a map and discussed our hunting strategy for the next day.

"A days journey to the north," she said, pointing to a place on the map. "And there's a nice little forest where the enemies start getting harder. A little after that, there's a small village wehre we can rest while we gain experience. Then over here, towards the west there's a low-level dungeon that's good for beginners. If we have proper gear and weapons, it should be easy for us!"

"Sounds like a good plan," I said cheerfully. "I'm glad I have you along to show me these things."

"Of course milord," Mein said smiling. "Oh, but you haven't drank your wine yet."

"I'm not all that fond of alcohol," I said. 

That, and I was still a bit wary about getting drunk, even with a friend to watch out for me. There were still people who'd happily steal my purse and my instincts told me not to let my guard down in a strange place. 

"You should have some of this wine," she urged me. "It's very good!"

"No thanks," I said firmly. "Maybe some other time. And speaking of time, now that we have our plan of attack worked out, we should probably get some sleep. We'll want an early start tomorrow."

We parted ways to go to our separate rooms at the top of the stairs, and then I realized that I'd forgotten to tell her I was a girl over dinner. Oh well, I could tell her in the morning. I went into my room and took off the cheap mail shirt that Mein had pressed me into buying, wearing only my other world clothes underneath. I sat on the bed and sighed, letting it all sink in.

I was a _hero_ this time. This was all real! _I_ got to be the Chosen One and not some spineless twerp who barely knew one end of a sword from the other. I had a reliable friend, and people treated me with respect. It was literally a dream come true.

_:Livin' the dream,:_ I thought smugly.

I pulled out my coin purse and spread my silvers and coppers out on the bed to count them. My shield suddenly reacted, buzzing at me like my cell phone on vibrate. Going off past experience, I held up a copper coin to the jewel on the shield and watched as it was sucked in and absorbed.

**Coin Sheild Unlocked!**   
**Equipment Bonus: +3 Charisma.**   
**Ability: Convert.**   
**Skill Unlocked! Haggle.**

My shield changed into a large golden coin. On the top of the inside of my shield, facing me, was what looked like a coin slot. Gamely, I pushed a copper coin into the slot and a translucent magic window promptly popped up in my vision like the Status Screen from earlier had done. There was a smaller section of the screen that was divided into three columns labeled Gold, Silver and Copper along the top. On the bottom of the screen were several large bar-buttons laid out; there was a set of three long buttons grouped tightly together and another long bar underneath them at the bottom of the screen. The set of three buttons were two arrow-shaped buttons, one pointing up and one pointing down, flanking the top and bottom respectively of a larger button in the middle marked with the word "convert" on it. The bar along the bottom of the screen was a single button marked "vend."

_:This seems thankfully pretty self-explanatory,:_ I thought. _:It looks like a I have a shield that can store my coin like a bank and convert larger denominations into smaller denominations. That'll come in handy, I'm sure!:_

**((Authors Note: This shield appears no-where in any of the original source texts BTW, I just thought it was a neat idea.))**

I fed a silver coin into the slot on the shield and and the pop-up window showed that I had one silver in the category marked silver. The arrows on the bottom of the window lit up, or at least the down arrow button did. I pushed the arrow button, mostly to confirm that it worked the way it looked like it should work. The number 1 disappeared from the silver category, but the number in the copper category increased by a hundred.

"Ah, I see," I murmured. "This shield can convert one coin to another. I wonder what happens when I hit vend. I hope it gives me my coin back, that would be a pretty useless shield if it didn't."

I pushed the vend button on the bottom of the window and another small screen popped up showing the amount of coin I had in the inventory of my coin shield, along with two more up and down arrows and another button marked vend. It seemed pretty simple and fairly self-explanatory. I pushed on the copper coin category to highlight it, the arrow buttons lit up, I clicked the up button, and a tiny window with a number one next to a picture of a copper coin in it appeared. When I kept pushing the up arrow the number increased, when I pushed down it got smaller. I hit "vend" at five coppers just to test it, and sure enough, a small pile of five coppers materialized before me.

: _This is much safer than actually carrying my coin on me where I can get robbed,:_ I thought.

That had always been one of my biggest worries in the world of Twelve Kingdoms. I couldn't eat without coin, and there was always someone bigger and stronger and more well armed than me that was happy to relieve me of it, at least up until Kou-ou took me in and trained me as an assassin... then i could just kill anyone who tried to rob me, but up until that point, I'd lived in fear of being mugged. It was no small thing not to have to fear being stolen from.

I started loading the rest of my silvers from the enormous stash of coins the king had given me and watched as the number of silver coins in my inventory screen rose steadily. By the time I was done depositing my money, the screen showed that I had four hundred and eighty-seven silver coins and fifty-three copper coins. I mentally compared that to the running tally I'd kept in my head of the money I had spent that day and found them to be equal. Good. 

I was about to turn in for the night, able to sleep soundly knowing that my money was secure and inaccessible to anyone but me, when I glanced down at the coin purse that the king had handed to me earlier that day. The teacher who had been kind to me in the other world had also once advised me that, when traveling with money, it was always wiser to keep a decoy purse filled with coins of small denominations in a very obvious place, and keep the coins of true value secreted away in another place so that just in case I was robbed, a thief would leave me alone if I told him I had no other coin than what was in the decoy purse.

_:I don't know if anyone can rob my shield, but it's better safe than sorry,:_ I thought.

I used my coin shield to convert a few silver coins into hundreds of copper coins and put those in my coin bag instead. From the outside and from the weight, it looked like it was filled with the same coin I'd been given that morning, so just in case word got out that I was carrying around hundreds of silver coins they'd only get less valuable coins. It had been implied that the person of a Hero was sacred, but experience had taught me that, for those who saw opportunity and didn't care about the law, _nothing_ was sacred.

I turned my shield back to a plain default small shield and went to bed. 

_:So tomorrow my real adventure begins. I can't wait! This is exactly what I wanted all along, and I get a new friend in the bargain. It finally looks like my luck is starting to turn up right!:_

I slept heavily the whole night through and woke early the next morning. I looked around me, yawning in the early morning sunlight slanting through the windows and getting my bearings. My head felt a bit sore and achy, and my tongue felt funny too. Odd. Then I noticed that the bag of coins that I had put with my chain mail shirt and pack of provisions was no where to be found. In fact, it was all gone! I shot out of bed.

_:Crap! I was just robbed!:_ I thought in a panic.

"Mein!" I called out to the wall that separated our rooms, pulling my hoodie on over my one set of clothes. "Mein get up, call the guard! We were just robbed!" I thumped the wall and called her name again to wake her up.

Then suddenly my door came crashing in. Three big, burly men in full plate mail armed with spears burst into my room. Well that was quick, it was nice to be a Hero!

"Oh, thank goodness you guys got here so quickly," I said in relief. "My partner and I were just robbed, the culprit must have come in some time during the--"

"Silence!" the knight in the front commanded, grabbing me up roughly. 

It didn't hurt, exactly, but I was surprised to be treated so roughly suddenly without cause.

"Hey!" I yelped, irritated. "What's the big idea?"

"You're under arrest," the lead pike-man informed me. "We're taking you to the palace to be officially accused."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just when things were starting to go right for Yuka...


	6. The Wheel of Fortune (What Goes Up...)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Things Take a Turn.

"Hey!" I yelped, irritated. "What's the big idea?"

"You're under arrest," the lead pike-man informed me. "we're taking you to the palace to be officially accused."

I stared at him in confusion.

"You have it backwards," I informed him blankly. "I was just robbed. You need to go after him."

Instead they grabbed me up by my upper arms and shoved me roughly down the hall, being not any too gentle. They force-marched me to the palace and threw me down to the floor before the throne. I skinned both of my knees and was promptly surrounded by more armed guards than I had ever seen in my life. The king sat on his throne, glaring down on me from on high with an expression of a stern judge, that didn't entirely manage to hide the cruelly pleased gleam in his eye. The other "hero-boys were there too, Ren and Itsuki looked concerned and dubious, but the playboy-looking one was staring at me with condemnation in his eyes. Mein was in his arms with her head buried against his shoulder. 

_:I don't like this.:_ I thought with a sinking feeling as my gut tightened. 

"Now we see your true colors!" the king thundered out into the throne room to a crowd of guards and on-looking nobles. "I knew from the moment I saw you that there was darkness in your heart and yet, I sheltered you, and succored you, praying the the holy Sheild would not have fallen to one so unworthy. It seems that your twisted soul has managed to corrupt the holy power!"

He was definitely playing up for his audience, I just didn't know yet where all of this is leading to.

I waited for him to finish nattering on and get to the point. I felt my old friend stubborn defensiveness rise up in me. All of the work I had done yesterday to train myself to be nice, and try to accept people into my life, promptly disintegrated. My own inner walls went up with a vengeance. I had a feeling that things were going to take a turn for the worse, and when that happened, I wasn't going to survive by playing nice with everyone, I was going to have to get _true-Yuka_ on them, cold and ruthless, but in control. I clamped down on my emotions and ordered myself to analyze and not react. It was the only way I'd found to keep bullies off my back, just remain cold and calm and not give them the reaction they wanted and they'd eventually move on to other targets.

"Get to the point, old man," I snapped, scowling at him while he maligned my character. "If you have something to say, then spit it out, otherwise quit wasting my time."

"Feind!" he shouted, like a demagogue at me. "Now we all witness the true darkness within you. An arrogant disrespectful child who knows not light within. It is no wonder you would stoop to such a base, depraved act!"

So far the only one I saw being arrogant and disrespectful was him. I hadn't dragged him out of bed, knocked him to his knees and started shouting insults at him. I stared back at him, injecting my look with extra aloof coldness, not giving away anything.

"Do you deny your heinous crime?" he demanded of me after a long silence like a stand-off. 

_: **Crime** , what does he mean by that?:_ I wondered. _:I haven't done anything.:_

"You haven't accused me of a crime," I informed him cooly, willing myself not to react, not to feel anything."So far all you and your soldiers have done is dragged me out of my room chained me up and shouted insults at me without any explanation."

Emotion was my enemy right then, I needed my wits about me. When one is being questioned, one must be very specific, otherwise the inquisitor holds the upper hand.

"Come forward, dear child," the king said with a pitying look at my partner.

I narrowed my eyes, not liking this one bit, as Mein left the Spear-guy's side. She had a tragic, tearful look on her face and I was left feeling even more confused than when I'd started. Past experience with the girls at school, however, told me that she was about to stick a knife in my back.

"Tell the court what this evil man has done to you," he said. "The shame is all upon him for this terrible, reprehensible thing. You must be strong."

"W-well..." Mein said, tears welling up in her eyes. "L-last night, after we'd eaten at the tavern. The Shield Hero drank too much alcohol to celebrate our victory."

She sniffled almost as though for effect.

"I went to my room first but then he... he followed me."

"That's a lie! I never went in her room," I protested in confusion and with a creeping dread. "I went into my own room and counted my coins, I can prove it."

"Silence, lying scum!" the king shouted. "That you would compound your terrible act with such falsity on top of it shows that you are truly corrupt to the depths of your soul!"

"Who's corrupt? I'm telling you that what she just said is a lie!" I shouted back, incensed.

"Continue, dear child," the king said gently to Mein, ignoring me.

"He... he held me down and... he..." she burst into sobs, burying her face against Motoyasu's shoulder. "I just can't!"

My temper truly began to smoulder and it wasn't _just_ because this girl was accusing me of a terrible crime that I hadn't committed. It wasn't _just_ that she was betraying me when I thought I'd finally found a friend.

No, the true root of my anger was a lager issue.

She was claiming a victimhood that she had no right to. She was claiming sympathy for a terrible violation and she had no right to it. She was hurting _other_ victims, victims who truly had undergone a horrible, awful experience (one that _I_ would have been put through myself if things at the brothel in the Twelve Kingdoms had went differently!). The most important thing for a victim is to be believed, there was nothing that hurt them worse than when they finally had the courage to stand up and speak about what happened and people didn't believe they were telling the truth, or worse thought they'd somehow brought it on themselves. It was cases like these that made other people feel justified in not believing them. Other people stole the sympathy they should deserve by pulling crap like this, and abusing their tragedies for their own ends.

:She's the absolute worst!:

Cold, cold anger like rage clenched at my heart. How dared she?! How dared this lying, privileged bitch walk over victims without a thought for her own selfish ends?!

_:I'm not going to let this happen,:_ I thought angrily. _:This bitch is going down!:_

But in order to do that, I had to pin her precisely. I was going to have to make it so that she couldn't weasel out of it or have any way of backtracking when I revealed her for the liar she was.

"And I... what?" I replied coolly. "You didn't finish, Mein. As the accused, I have the right to know the precise nature of my crime. Tell the court in exact detail what it was you claim I have done to you."

The three hero-bros looked at me with aghast looks of disgust.

"You're terrible," Itsuki breathed.

"If she's come this far, she has to finish," I replied. "Now, Mein. Was it penetrative sex with my alledged sexual organ, or simply molestation? Say it so everyone can hear you."

There were gasps all around me. People began shouting at me, but I willed myself not to have any reaction. They were going to all feel very foolish in a moment.

"You're the worst, you damn rapist!" Motoyasu shouted. "That you've done such a terrible thing in the first place is bad enough but now you're making this poor girl relive her awful experience here in front of everyone. There's nothing but evil in you."

"You disgust me," Ren said quietly, narrowing his eye at me. "I knew there was something different about you, but I hadn't thought you'd turn out like this."

"You three stay out of this," I said. "I've been accused of rape, and I say that I am innocent and I can prove my innocence beyond a doubt. I've a right to defend myself. I will see justice done!"

"Not another word!" the king roared. "Such a base, cruel and foul creature as yourself has no right to be a Hero!"

I narrowed my eyes at him. He seemed suspiciously not to want me to present my proof. Like he was deliberately obstructing justice. 

"As king of Melromarc, I pronounce your guilty of rape!" he thundered. "Because of your unique position, I cannot sentence you to a punishment befitting your crime, but I say here and now that everyone within a days ride will know of it. All willknow that the sheild hero is no true hero at all, but a rapist."

"Hey!" I snapped, now thoroughly pissed off. "You can't just decide that without letting me present evidence to defend myself. This bitch is a liar and I didn't touch her!"

"Guards! Throw this criminal out into the streets like the trash he is!"

"Wait dammit!" I shouted now thoroughly angry. 

I had thought that I would at least have been given a fair chance to defend myself but it seemed that the justice system here was woefully lacking. It hadn't even been a trial, but a sentencing!

The guards picked me up, "accidentally" pinching and punching and kicking me along the way as the dragged me through the castle. I was dragged through the streets up to a great square where the townsfolk gathered, shouting epithets at me, while my crime was read like a decree. I strugged to get free, to protest my innocensce and demand a the chance to prove myself but the castle guards held me down, gagged and struggling. 

It was the single most _humiliating_ experience in all of my life. No amount of petty bullying or social stigmatization, or even the actual guilt of a real crime, came close to how it felt to be chained to a block, gagged and bound while people threw indescribable things at me. Like in old tv shows it was rotten fruit and vegetables or even rocks, well they had those, but remember how I'd mentioned how their streets were swept clean of horse shit? Well, they clearly kept it somewhere, because they threw it at me. Once the guard had finished reading my crime they left me there for the crowd to continue to amuse themselves throwing all manner of things, rotten fruit, horse dung, rocks. After an hour or so I was unchained and let go once the crowd had gotten their fun in. 

_:I hate them all.:_

Rage and bitterness consumed my heart. If that bitch had been standing before me I'd have found a way to rip her heart out with my bare hands. I hated her personally for what she'd done to me, but I was accustomed to having my honor ripped to shreds. What truly pissed me off was the injustice, and it wasn't just for me. I hated that bitch on a _feminist_ level. She was hurting hundreds of other women with her false claim, damaging thousands of potential other cases, and she didn't care. 

_:And that king too!:_ I raged inside. _:Judging me without even hearing my side.:_

I wanted to weep at the unfairness of it all but the judgement and condemnation I saw in the faces of perfect strangers whom I'd never met, whose names i didn't know and who had never before met me, made my pride rear up. They didn't know me! They didn't know I was innocent and if they did, I bet none of them would have cared. I hardened my heart and let resentment consume me, it acted like a balm to the wounds I'd stupidly let them give me by thinking it was okay to trust anyone. I turned my heart to stone and closed my eyes, letting their hatred and condemnation wash over me. Who cared what they thought? I didn't care, and if I didn't care they'd never hurt me again.

No-one was ever going to hurt me again. I was never letting anyone in because every time I did, they betrayed me. I wouldn't care no matter what. 

_:You know what, fuck them! Fuck their stupid stuck up superior morality, fuck their country, fuck their king. Fuck all of them. I hope they all get eaten by demons. Why do I have to be brought over here? And why should I defend them? They all seem perfectly happy to throw me to the wolves without having to listen to my side, why should I help them? Let their whole shitty kingdom be swallowed by darkness!:_

Thanks to my incredibly high defense none of the rocks that the crowd had thrown at me had actually hurt me, but when the guards unlocked my chains and I climbed to my feet from the pile of rotten produce and excrement, I smelled really, _really_ bad. Before they finished untying me, the guards all got one last kick in. I took what small satisfaction I could from the fact that no matter how they struck at me or how many rocks were slung my way, I didn't feel a single one of them. I was invulnerable!

After I was released from the block I wandered down main street headed to the gate that led out of town. No way was I sticking around there. Everywhere I looked people glared at me. Some spat at my feet, mothers hid their children from me in their skirts and whispers of words I could barely catch surrounded me. "Criminal" and "rapist" and "evil" were the most common, as well as other insults. Fine, who cared what they thought? 

My stomach rumbled. I hadn't eaten that day. I thought about heading to a vendor for some food, but the thought of eating right then made me feel sick. I scowled back at the world, determined to show how little their opinions mattered to me. Slouching against their hatred like a person fighting against the wind of a storm, I scowled.

"Hey!" I was stopped by a somewhat familiar voice. 

Blocking the street in front of me was that weapons smith, the kindly oyaji from before. He had his arms crossed over his massive, muscular chest. His great, strong arms looked like they might do some damage, even to me. 

"I heard what you did to your comrade," he said, voice deep and dangerous. "Allow me to hit once myself."

"Oh, you too now?" I replied, scowling over at him. "Why not, everyone else seems to be having such a great time, should you be any different?"

"You say something bastard?!" He demanded, scooping me up by the front of my hoodie. 

Jokes on him, there's shit and rotten vegetable-slime on this hoodie and you just put your hands all over it.

_:Heh. Serves ya right.:_

I glared defiantly back at him, determined that this wasn't going to hurt me one bit, not in my body and not in my heart. I would never be vulnerable again. So let him and everyone else wear themselves down on the wall of my indifference. Let them. I forced myself not to flinch or brace for the blow, I could take it, it wasn't going to hurt.

He paused, staring down at me as I glared back. He let me down slowly and then released me.

"What?" I demanded flatly. "Not gonna hit me, like everyone else? Well go on, get it over with! I have things to do."

"I've seen enough," he said quietly.

I tch'd at him. I actually did. I'd never tch'd in all of my life, it was incredibly rude. Right now I didn't care. Right now everyone in this whole kingdom was beneath my contempt. It didn't matter if he'd hit me or decided to let me go, he was still one of them. I stalked down the street away from him, out into the wilds, out into freedom away from everyone in that awful place. I never wanted to see or talk to anyone ever again. 

"Hey! Shield-brat!" the oyaji called after me. "That way leads out of town, where are you going?!"

I took a mean satisfaction from ignoring him. It felt kinda good, after all why should I acknowledge him? He was one of Them, and They didn't matter anymore.

"I told you to wait!" he shouted. 

Next thing I knew something soft and heavy hit me in the back of the head. Sprawled out on the street, I looked around in puzzlement at the assortment of clothes and the dufflebag surrounding me. 

"What the hell is this, old man?" I demanded of him. 

"A parting gift," he scowled back at me. "You walk around wearing shit, you'll get the position of Shield Hero dirty."

"I don't need your help!" I howled at him, hating him for his superior kindness. "Don't you _dare_!" 

Proud, I rolled them up in a ball and threw them right back at his head. I would be _damned_ before I let anyone give me charity, much less one of Them, the people who'd torn me down and taken away my dignity in the first place. I. Would. Be. _**Damned**_! I'd rather walk around covered in shit and slime than accept charity from one of Them.

"Don't mistake me, brat," the shopkeep said abruptly. "They're on clearance, five coppers."

My sudden fit of rage at his temerity for trying to treat me like a charity case slowly ebbed a little. I changed my shield to Coin Shield and hit vend, pulling out five coppers. It was cheap for a suit of clothes but it wasn't kindness so I didn't have to feel grateful to him. Gratitude was for weaklings, feeling was for weaklings... I would never be weak again.

"Don't die out there, brat," he called after me.

I pretended I hadn't heard and headed towards the gate and out of the city. I wasn't running away, but right then, I just couldn't stay. If I stayed in that city, I was going to loose my cool and burn the whole place to the ground.


	7. Trouble

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Dusts Herself Off and Decides She's Stronger Than Her Oppressors.

Smelling myself was awful, and I was stuck smelling myself the whole walk through the fields. Those nasty balloon demons swarmed me and attached themselves to all of my limbs. They didn't seem to care that I literally smelled like shit, they went about their life's mission to make my life miserable.

"Yeah, yeah, take a number and get in line," I muttered at the balloons chomping away on me with no effect. "You're not the worst thing that's happened to me all day."

I found a place down by a river in a little valley at the edge of where the fields met the forest nearby that was sheltered. I stripped out of my clothes (the shield shrank down to something that was more like a wrist-watch size so that I could take my clothes off) and dipped into the chilly water. 

_:Stupid morons,:_ I thought darkly to myself as I looked down at my tiny breasts and feminine curves as I washed off in the swiftly moving stream. _:If they'd have waited a few minutes, they'd have all learned the truth about me, and the truth about her. Maybe it's better this way though. If I'd not been shown just how hopelessly cruel they all are, I might have given them another chance.:_

In my mind right then, forgiving them was a worse offense to me than having been chained down, falsely accused of a crime, and set up for public shaming. My throat was tight and burning, tears kept trying to form behind my eyes but I proudly would not let them fall. I was not going to cry over them, they were not worthy of my tears. I was going to be strong. So I let the resentment, the bitterness and the determination to be indifferent toward them well up within me and banish the sorrow of the day. I washed and rinsed, and washed and rinsed, over and over as though soap could cleanse me of the taint of accusation.

I washed my dirty clothes while I was still naked in the stream. The old man had given me a bar of soap. I cut my thoughts off before I could feel anything like gratitude to him. I'd paid for it. It was a business transaction. That was all. There was no need for me to feel grateful, no need for softness or weakness, he was still one of Them. After five washings, they at last were as clean as they were going to get. They were still hopelessly stained, but at least the smell was gone. I laid them out in the sun over bushes as I dressed myself in the clean set that the oyaji had given me.

I sat down by the riverbank and just let my mind go blank for a moment. The import of the days events trickled in through a fog of disbelief. I'd been summoned to another world again. But this time it was me, not Youko or anyone else, but _me_ , who had specifically been brought here, and given a special weapon and a Prophesied Mission. I was supposed to be a _Hero_. Now because of one stupid bitch's false accusation, I'd gone from being the hero I'd always wanted to be, to being the object of bullying just like I always was.

_:I seriously can't win,:_ I thought. _:No matter what world I'm on, it's like the gods of that universe is against me. They grant me my fondest wish but only so the gods of the universes can laugh their cosmic asses off when they fulfill it in a way that makes me the butt of their joke. "oh you wanna save the world do you Yuka? Here, let's have you be accused of raping a girl even when you're another girl and see how funny that is. Oh look at that, it's hilarious!" Very funny gods, I'm not laughing.:_

My stomach growled. Loudly.

_:Heh. I guess the world isn't really ending, even if it feels like it is. I should stop feeling sorry for myself and get on with things.:_

Despite everything that had happened, I was still worlds ahead of where I had been the last time I'd been summoned to another world. I still had some money secreted away. Not a lot of coin, but enough to get me through. It was a lot more than I'd had on the other world anyway, so even if I couldn't hunt or cook I probably wouldn't go hungry. And I had a Legendary Weapon, one that could surely give me all the advantages I could ever need, if only I knew how to work it.

_:Let's have a closer look at my Legendary Weapon,:_ I thought. _:After all, it is the reason I'm here. It would be foolish of me not to learn about it. Even if I can't use it to fight, I should still know about it.:_

I pulled up my status menu and clicked on the Shield icon next to the words Legendary Weapon. Suddenly there popped up a huge screen before me that was as tall and as broad as a whiteboard from school. The sreen showed a large web of ever-branching icons, a few of which were white and obviously activated, the Yellow Balloon, the Coin Sheild... only the Shields I had unlocked so far. The other hundreds of icons were all blanked out and grey, signalling that they hadn't been unlocked yet. Branching off that tree were four main, broad branches, and then more branches off those with multiple prongs and even more branches off them. Some of the branches came back together than split off into different trees. There had to be hundreds of different shields, maybe even thousands because I discovered when I swiped my finger over it to the left, I was only seeing a small portion of the Shield Grid. When I pinched my thumb and forefinger over it and spread them out, like I was trying to enlarge something on a touchscreen, the Grid zoomed in, when I pinched my fingers back together, the grid zoomed out.

"I wonder if all of the shields you can unlock are shown on the Grid, or if it's like those other games where you can unlock a secret shield if you meet certain conditions," I mused to myself as I tapped on the Yellow Baloon icon, and a smaller window popped up showing the stats of that shield.

**Yellow Shield +12: 12/50 Common  
** **Equip Bonus: +.60 Defense**

_:Huh, that's interesting,:_ I thought, now fully engrossed in my task. _:It looks like I've leveled up this Shield shield somehow. The numbers are bigger. I wonder what happens when i get that number all the way up to fifty. Will it unlock another Shield, or something else, I wonder.:_

For now, until I knew how to use other methods of unlocking shields, the only way I knew worked was to wait until my shield reacted to something and let it absorb that thing, whatever it was. It worked with both youma drops like the yellow balloon rubber and with certain ordinary objects, like the coin that had unlocked the Coin Shield. If that tree was anything to go by, it looked like there were hundreds of other shields to unlock but no real explanation as to how to unlock them.

_:Maybe I'll find a better explanation in the Help menu,:_ I thought, still trying not to let despair and depression overtake me.

Sometimes all that was left to do was just soldier on.

I pressed the little button marked Help in the lower corner of the screen and a small scrolling menu popped up with the different sections of the Help Index. So far it only had a few entities; it told me what attack and defense and my other stats meant and it gave me a basic run-down of the only two shields that I'd unlocked so far, but it didn't tell me anything that was actually _useful._

_:Nothing useful for my job like, is aggro a thing in this world, and will I get exp from attracting enemies and then finding some other way to make them dead like a trap, or something else.:_

It also did not tell me about the Party system... or _anything_ really. There was still a lot I didn't know; like did my overall level affect whether or not I could unlock a shield, did each shield level individually, and did I only get to enjoy the equipment bonuses and skills if I had that one particular shield equipped. I felt frustration well up in me.

_:This has got to be the least helpful Help Menu that I've ever come across!:_ I thought in frustration.

The frustration began to trigger certain other emotions I had suppressed that day that were still swimming just under the surface. I was still determined that I wasn't going to cry over what they'd done to me, for they were not worthy of my tears. Tears were for important things, not worthless people who should never have been given the power to hurt me in the first place.

"Right," I said aloud to myself. "It's time for a little Yuka Sugimoto pick-me-up."

I automatically reached down to my side for my schoolbag so that I could pull out my MP3 player only to realize that I didn't have my schoolbag with me. Because I had been training at the gym, my player was still in my pocket, and I'd taken it out when I washed my clothes. I wasn't sure if technology would work on a magic run world. I looked at my Sheila. It was a magical artifact of supreme power, there was no _way_ I was going to allow that it could not perform a function so simple and yet so vital to my mental well-being. 

"Listen Shield," I said in a confiding tone. "Look, it's just going to be you and me, okay? And I've had one of the top ten worst days of my life. I mean, I'm not starving or sold to a brothel and that's great but it's still managed to make the top three. I _need_ my music."

Music was usually how I got through when times got tough. I had playlists all sorted out for each situation, and it was probably genuinely the only thing that worked to make me actually feel better about myself. it reminded me that I could be strong on my own and it helped to remind me of my own strength.

"Now I _know_ that there must be some sort of audio sub-menu on that screen somewhere that'll take off the regular background track and let me play my music on it. All the cool games are doing it. Just... look, I just really need you to make this happen for me."

I hated that my throat was tight and tears were threatening, but my music was ridiculously important to me. I looked over at the icons along the bottom and... there was a button, just after Items and Magic that said Settings on it. 

_:Strange that I hadn't noticed it before,:_ I thought in mystification, wondering if my memory was playing tricks before.

After all, everyone forgot about the settings menu until they actually needed it. I pushed the button and sure enough, one of the tabs in it, among others, was an Audio tab. I pressed the button for Import and a little window popped up with a mirror of my MP3 Players' screen. I selected my best "I've just been bullied but I don't care what they think so I'm just gonna rock out" playlist and got to my feet. A moment later music came out of my shield and I selected the volume control to turn it up and defiance filled the little forest clearing.

"No attorneys, to plead my case," I sang along, rocking out where no-one could see me. "No orbits, to send me into outer space..."

I was done playing nice, I was gonna be _trouble_!

"You think you're right, but you were wrong. You try to take me, but I knew all along..."

My songs kept playing and I slowly started to feel a little better. It usually happened that way, because I didn't pick songs for those lists that were sad or slow or all about bemoaning my pitiful fate. If there was one thing I found was toxic to pulling myself back on my feet, it was self pity. My music was upbeat and defiant. In fact, I was rather a bit taken with the idea of being trouble to the person who'd made what should have been a dream into a nightmare for me.

_:If I can ever find a way to get back at that damned king and that little bitch,:_ I thought furiously. _:I'm gonna make them pay!:_

By the time my playlist had ended I had managed to achieve a new state of defiant equilibrium and it was actually getting fairly late. I was pretty hungry, but I didn't want to head back into town. Fortunately, the oyaji who had sold me my clothes had also thrown in a set of flint and steel strikers, and I actually knew how to use them from my time in the other world, so I made up a little campfire in my little spot I'd found by the river and crunched down on a roll and some hard cheese from the sack. I decided that I wasn't going to head back into town just yet because, frankly, I needed a day to get over everything, and if I had to look at even one person judge me for something I didn't do, I was going to loose my shit. 

:I can take stock and plan out my strategy tomorrow, right now, I think I'll just... sleep here."


	8. An Investment In Yourself

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Discovers That She's a Very Unpopular Woman.

The night was long and cold and covered with dew. I'd forgotten that about camping in the wild, so I woke up chilled, damp, hungry and grumpy. I had a little bit of food from the day before still left over but I'd have to go back into the city for more. I didn't want to have to visit that awful place more than once or stay there for any longer than I had to, so it would be best if I worked out my strategy before I headed back so I'd be able to get in, get my gear, and get out.

First priority was gaining some levels, I was going to need them if I wanted to survive the Wave of Calamity that I'd been brought here to fight, and those other hero-boys were all probably leaving me in the dust in terms of EXP-gain by now seeing as they had weapons that could kill things and I didn't.

"And how am I supposed to get EXP now? I have zero attack," I muttered to myself. "I can _technically_ kill one of the tiniest, weakest demons even with no attack power but it takes _for-flippin'-ever_. It'd take hours to even gain one level, and if I can't gain levels I can't grow my power. And this Legendary Shield won't let me equip a sword to fight with, so that's out."

Based on everything I'd seen and heard of so far, one could only gain experience by killing monsters. Zero attack meant zero kills meant zero xp meant zero levels. More evidence stacking up for cosmic unfairness, but there was no point in stressing over that. I got a hold of my rising frustration with the catch-twenty-two of the situation and ordered myself to remain calm.

_:There's got to be some kind of loophole,:_ I thought to myself. _:I just need to think outside the box, use my imagination. I'm as much a gamer as any of the rest of those other hero-boys no matter how much they seem to look down on me, if I think hard enough I'm sure I can come up with a solution...:_

I liked RPG games, like the Final Fantasy series had always been a favorite of mine, but because of my loner nature, all the games I usually played were single player RPG's like the final fantasy series. I'd played Square Enix's new MMO (in which I'd somehow rolled a tank class and found myself with a more complicated role in team play than I'd thought) as my first RPG, and I liked it well enough but frankly I spent more time crafting than fighting.

"Okay Yuka, so think of a time in a game when your character couldn't equip any weapons... what did they do then?"

There had been a time in Final Fantasy 10 when Tidus had first gotten to Spira and been without a weapon, he'd still been able to use grenades. I perked up.

"Because incendiaries," I reasoned. "Are treated like items no matter that they have attack properties, the system treats them on the same level as healing items. That means that they're not weapons technically!"

I felt immediately cheered at the thought of having a possibly solution to my problem but...

"It's better not to put all your eggs in one basket. What else could I think of just in case the idea of throwing bombs at everything doesn't work out, or they don't have bombs or alchemy on this world."

I wracked my brain for a bit and then remembered a time in Final Fantasy 12, where Vaan, Balthier and the Viera girl were all trapped in an underground prizon with their weapons taken away and were set upon by three big prison thugs and had to fight against them without any of the weapns I'd come to rely on. The first time I'd played I'd hd to rely entirely on Baltheir to defeat them because Vaan's girly punches had had no effect. The reason Baltheir had saved the day was that he was the one who knew the fire spell. I hadn't taught Vaan any magic because his friend Penelo had been geared toward mage in the beginning so I hadn't bothered wasting LP on teaching Vaan spells. The second time I'd played through the game I'd made sure he knew at least one or two spells.

"That's it!" I perked up, having my solution. "I'll just learn magic. Even if I can't equip a staff to help out with MP or enhance my power, some spells will at least give me the offensive capability I need to gain some levels!"

I gathered up my cleaned clothes from the bushes where I'd hung them out to dry and was just about to leave the clearing when my eye fell upon a particular plant growing at the foot of a tree. My shield vibrated like a cell phone, alerting me that there was something useful about it. I thought I recognized it from somewhere, and after walking over to peer at it closely I remembered that I had seen a peddler selling small bundles of them in the bazaar.

_:I wonder if it's some kind of medicinal herb, or a spice of some sort...:_

I picked a leaf and went to sniff it, and my shield vibrated like a cell phone at me. I brought the leaf over to the jewel in my shield and it was absorbed. The surface of the shield morphed into a giant green leaf, and a window popped up announcing

**Leaf-Shield Unlocked!**   
**Equipment Bonus +1 Harvest.**   
**Equipment Skill Unlocked: Harvest Sight.**

I noticed now that the small herb-plant before me was glowing with a golden sort of light hovering over it making it easier to spot. I glanced around the field. There were several other spots that glowed. I walked over and started plucking the leaves of the nearest plant and noticed that for every leaf I plucked I'd get two in my hand. Nice!

"So," I murmured to myself. "If this game, er, this _reality_ has a gathering mechanic, there must be crafting systems too. I'll have to find a way to unlock the right shield for those, somehow."

Once I'd plucked the nearby plants of their useful leaves, I turned back to the city I'd come from and hesitated. I'd just washed and put on clean clothes and I was exceedingly reluctant to risk getting them dirty again, and I wouldn't put it past those townies to do something unpleasant to me out of spite.

"Hmm..." I thought to myself. _:If I go back I risk letting them throw mud and other things at me and get me dirty all over again. But on the other hand, I need to buy provisions. I'll need a tent if nothing else, if I'm going to be sleeping out in the wilderness. Plus I want to purchase a magic spell and also investigate the alchemy angle and see if I can't make some bombs or something. If there's medicine and magic in this world then there might be alchemy too. If only there was a way to make them fear me enough to respect me, something I could threaten them with, to get them to leave me alone. They all know I'm the Shield Hero, they know I can't attack, thus they'd feel free to attack me with impunity--:_

My thoughts were broken into by the feeling of one of the balloons from a nearby knot of them sensing me and zipping right over to chomp right down onto my arm. It didn't really hurt, but it was sort of annoying.

"Off me! You pest!" I cursed at it, shaking my arm.

It gnawed dedicatedly at me, I had to give it that. The lightbulb went off in my brain. These little buggers didn't hurt _me,_ but my defense was off the chain, but they'd be _really_ troublesome to the soft, vulnerable people in town...

_:If they leave me alone, fine, I'll just keep the little buggers chomped down on me,:_ I promised myself as I walked right towards the swarm of red balloons. _:But if those people do make nuisances of themselves, well it serves them right if they wind up with a little more trouble than they bargained for!:_

"I'm trouble, yeah trouble now..." I sang cheerfully as I let the little orange and yellow ballon-youma all latch onto me. When I had a sufficient amount of them, I hid them under the cape and mantle the old man had given-- er, that I had _bought_ from the shopkeep.

I couldn't deny a certain sort of fiendish delight in the thought of getting a little of my own back against Them. From the top to the bottom, as far as was concerned there was nothing about these people that was worth saving. They were cruel savages who followed a cruel master and I wanted them all to get eaten by demons, but I wasn't the same person as I'd become in the world of the Twelve Kingdoms, where I was willing to sacrifice everything else for my own private vendetta and pursue power at any cost. I wasn't going to sink back down to that awful place. A little bit of petty revenge against someone who attacked me _directly_ however... I wasn't above _that_ , certainly!

I walked back to town with seven of the nippy little balloon-youma attached to me. The first place I went was to a local herb-merchant's booth I'd seen, just to see what he could give me for the herbs I'd just picked.

"I'd like to sell these," I said bluntly striding up to his booth.

"These are of really good quality, and fresh too. Where did you find them lad?" the merchant asked.

He then looked down at my shield and his demeanor changed. It wasn't so much like he looked at me in condemnation (though there was that in his eyes) it was more like he had just found a way to make money.

"None of your business," I said brusquely. "How much will you buy them for?"

"We-e-e-ll," he said, smiling with a devilish smile and actually rubbing his hands together. "You may be the Shield Hero, but you are still a _criminal_ so..."

He pocketed the herb sample that I'd given him to appraise!

"It looks like there's no laws against me confiscating a controlled substance from a convicted criminal," he said. "There's no need for me to compensate you, so why not just hand the rest over like a good lad and maybe I'll be generous."

I narrowed my eyes. So that was how he wanted to play it eh?

"Speaking of generosity," I said. "I too have something I'd like to give you. It seems you like your offerings fresh, so I'll give you something spicy, that's still alive and kicking!"

I pushed aside one panel of my cape and pulled one of the balloon demons that was glommed onto the side of my rib. With a grin I released it right at the merchants face. It clamped directly onto his enormous nose and I had the wonderful sight of watching him shout and writhe trying to pull it off his face. Passersby looked over at us in dismay and i glared back, daring them to test my patience. they hurried on their way, with fearful glances back at me. Yeah, ol' Nick Machiavelli was right, it was better to be feared and respected than it was to be loved. Who needed love? I'd take the fear and respect any day.

"Now," I said. "Let's try this again. Don't underestimate me! You try to cheat me again and there's plenty more where those came from."

"You wretch!" he sniveled back at me. "Get this off me! I'll see you hanged for this! I have the ear of the king!"

"Oh really?" I said with an even wider smile. "Well I guess that means you can give him this message from me. Say hello to my little friend!"

I pulled off another of the little balloons attached to my sides and released it, this time siccing it on his ample bum and I got good entertainment for a minute by watching him flail about shouting in pain from one demon chomping on his nose and another demon gnawing on his posterior. If it hadn't been such a shitty day for me, I might have been laughing my ass off, but nothing seemed all that funny any more. Finally, deciding he'd suffered enough to make him reasonable, I reached over and yanked the critter from his nose, then reached out and grabbed the starched cravat around his neck. I pulled him toward me so that he was off-balance over his table.

"I want herb books, and crafting supplies," I demanded.

Bless his crooked heart, even when I had him over a barrel, the greasy little merchant _still_ tried to weasel around me.

"Those are expensive," he protested. "I can't give them away for a basket of herbs!"

"Fine," I said, shifting my shield to coin shield and vending out a few silvers. "I have coin. What do you got?"

Still rubbing his offended, tender nose, the merchant reached down under the counter and pulled out a well-worn second or third hand copy of what looked like a basic herb book, and another with a picture of a bottle and an old-fashioned alembic on it, clearly a crafting manual. He pulled out a pestle and mortar, an alembic and a beaker.

"How about alchemy," I pressed. "You got anything for that?"

He reluctantly pulled out another book.

"Good, how much?"

"Eighty silvers for each book, twenty silvers for the pestle, ten for the mortar, one hundred for the alembic and two hundred for the cauldron," he told me.

I actually did snort out a laugh.

"If you think I'm paying that much for these damaged goods, that's the funniest thing I've heard all day. You know what else is funny?"

I grabbed out another of my little friends and held it up threateningly, restraining it from attacking even as it chomped on thin air like a miniature pacman. The greasy little weasel rethought his position and we renegotiated. I wasn't expecting to talk him down to anything cheap, but I wasn't going to be robbed (again!). I walked away a few silvers poorer, but I considered it well worth the purchase.

_:The sensei from Twelve Kingdoms is right!:_ I thought with pleasure over my new books.

"An investment in knowledge is an investment in yourself!"

Speaking of which, I had more investing to do. I still needed to find a magic shop and get some spells. I spent an hour wandering around, looking for a magic shop. During my little constitutional, I noticed that people would literally cross to the other side of the street if they saw me coming. They also muttered curses at my back when I passed... though I note that this time, no-one had the brass tacks to spit at me or throw things. Maybe being trouble really was the right way to go after all. Before I'd gotten my little security demons, They hadn't seen any problem whatsoever with throwing garbage and other things at me for being a criminal, but now that I had my dear little friends with me, They didn't even dare come near me!

_:Or maybe sensei was wrong,:_ I reflected. _:It's not important to get along with other people, all they do is betray you and treat you as badly as you will let them get away with. Screw catching flies with honey, I'm using a flytrap! If they don't give me respect, then I'll take it by force!:_

I found the magic shop, finally. It was manned by a kindly-looking old granny who looked like she'd feed oatmeal cookies to her grand-kids and pinch their cheeks. I'll admit that I hesitated. It went against the grain to treat an old lady rudely, especially as I wasn't sure she was a potential enemy... that, and she knew _magic_. You didn't mess with someone who might be able to turn you into a toad or something. Oh, she was still one of Them, and thus, my enemy... but... I was genuinely confused a bit and uncertain how to proceed. I stood there in the doorway of her shop, scowling uncertainly and glaring at all in sundry.

"Go away!" a younger, middle-aged woman sporting one of those silly, cone-shaped witch hats and a wand shouted at me. "We don't want your kind here! I heard what you did to that girl, and you have no business in our shop. Get out!"

I narrowed my eyes and scowled at her. Even the nice (sort of) looking granny was frowning at me in disapproval. I was half tempted to sic one of my demons on her out of pique, but a sorceress could probably make short work of one little low level demon, and since it was her shop, she did technically have the right to refuse me service. Still, it hurt nothing to try.

_:Swallow your pride,:_ I commanded myself.

With an effort so herculean that it was almost _physical_ , I forced myself to set aside my pride and forced my request past my teeth in a tone as close to polite as I could manage.

"I mean no harm to anyone, unless you count the demons I was pulled away from my world to fight for you assholes. If you want me out of your hair and out of your shop and about the business you dragged me out of my nice comfortable life for, I request that you sell a spell to me. A fireball spell or something like it, an offensive magic for me to use."

"We're fresh out of spell-crystals," the middle-aged woman snapped, scowling at me.

"What about a book?" I tried again, fighting down a rising wave of resentment at her treatment.

"We're fresh out of books too," she said.

We both knew she was lying. I was shaking with anger but that anger was only there to cover up the hurt. I clamped down on it, pushing it down. This mean little woman didn't have the power to hurt me. I wouldn't give her the satisfaction.

"Fine," I growled and pivoted on my heel, slamming the door behind me.

I hoped I'd knocked one of their stupid decorations off their walls.

"A moment, child," a heard a soft, old voice call out to me.

I almost continued on my way out of hurt pride and spite. If they didn't want to treat with me, I was certainly under no obligation to listen to anything they had to say to me. In fact, maybe when their stupid Calamity came, I'd just hang up a hammock, mix me up a drink, and kick back to watch all of the fun. They might have forced me to come here, but they couldn't compel me to fight for them or protect them. They had three other Sainted Heroes after all, let their precious golden boys do all the fighting.

"What?" I demanded brusquely.

"Here," she said, holding out a fairly slim volume bound in stiff red paper and covered with arcane symbols.

I took it, and when she turned to leave I stopped her. Rather than thank her, I handed her a handful of silver coins.

"I don't take charity," I informed her sharply.

Right in time to ruin my grand and dignified exit that I planned to make after having managed to maintain my dignity around one of Them, my stomach grumbled loudly. I felt heat climb, unbidden, up into my cheeks. The granny started to give me a rather pitying, old lady smile and I deepened my frown at her, just to let her know that I wasn't anyone's object of amusement.

"I can find my own food."

I still turned with what was left of my dignity and stalked off. I followed my nose to a roadside vendor selling skewers of meat. He looked down his nose at me too, just like everyone else was. I heard his grown up son, who was assisting him, snort loudly in preparation to add some extra "flavoring" to my food in the form of a gobbet of spit. I pulled aside my mantle, showing him my chompy little friends and scowled meaningfully at him.

"Just the food, and no-one gets hurt," I warned them.

The vendor, an older man, cuffed his self-righteous little turd of a son-in-law upside the head and handed over the seven skewers of meat I'd ordered. I gobbled three of them on the spot, taking the rest of them to go with me. I also made a mental note of the episode. I was not going to be sitting down to any tavern meals any time soon, who knew what nasty little extras they'd add to my food while they were making it in the back and I couldn't see them?

Curious now, I opened the first of the books in my hands. Incomprehensible symbols met my eyes. I flipped through the book, scanning down the pages in dismay. My heart sank. I'd figured, since I could understand the spoken language of the world, probably thanks to my Legendary Weapon, that I would also automatically be able to read the written language too. It appeared that my Shield had a limitation.

"Crap!" I muttered, trying out the herb and crafting books, but discovering that it was no good. "I need a way to learn to read!"

If there was one thing I'd learned it was that ignorance got you into trouble. Sometimes deep trouble. And that I needed more avenues of information. In this case, my life might depend on it. If I couldn't learn to read, I'd never be able to learn magic or alchemy or anything useful, and there went my chance to level up!

Since he was the closest thing I'd seen to trustworthy so far in this world, I decided to stop at the weapons shop to ask oyaji some questions. I located the shop and let myself in. He looked troubled by my appearance, especially when he caught sight of my little house-guests hiding under my cape.

"So the rumors are true," he said, sounding a bit disappointed.

I scowled and ignored the pang of conscience.

"Don't worry," I said dryly. "You've dealt fairly with me so far, your shop is safe as long as it remains that way. This is just insurance against a certain unreasonable element of the population... which appears so far to be, well, _everybody else_ so far."

"You're not here for weapons, lad," he said after a small pause. "Another business transaction?"

"Information," I said.

He stared blankly back at me.

"I can speak your tongue just fine, but it's recently come to my attention that I lack the ability to read your script. Do you know anyone who might be willing to teach me? I'll pay coin."

He frowned, thinking.

"Lad," he said in exasperation. "You've done a fine job of alienating every person in town. There's not a teacher or book-keeper who'd take you on, not for gold or threat of demons."

_:They started it!:_ I thought rebelliously. _:I wouldn't have alienated anyone if they hadn't been treating me like garbage to start with. if I was rough with them, they were rough with me first. It's not fair!:_

I clamped down on my anger and resentment. There was little in any world that was fair. 

"How about someone outside of town? A village teacher or a priest or something?"

After all, I had good memories, sort of, from that village teacher in Twelve Kingdoms and it had made me kindly inclined toward those of the teaching professions.

"I suppose you could try the priesthood," he said dubiously. "But you'll have to get rid of your tiny protection squad first. The priesthood does not take kindly to demons, lad."

"Fine. Good. That'll work," I said, nodding. "One other thing... Um... I need to buy a tent. I don't plan on spending any more time in town than I absolutely need to and when I do escape to freedom form all you people I don't want to be rained on. I haven't seen a shop that would obviously sell such a thing, and I wouldn't know where to go and look for it."

The old man looked bemused for a moment, then nodded as thought he'd made a decision.

"Wait here," he said.

He went into the back and it sounded like he was rumaging around for a bit, then he returned to the front with a cloth parcel about twelve inches by ten inches by six inches.

"I've had this lying around the shop for years," he said. "I used this years ago, when I was a journeyman myself. When I set up shop I kept it, always meaning to go traveling in search of brighter ore. But I kept putting it off and putting it off, there was always something that needed doing more here. It's just been collecting dust in the bottom of my storage."

"I assume this means you're willing to sell it to me," I said.

He named a price, I named a lower one and we met in the middle. Frankly, he'd been so decent to me that I didn't haggle as sharply as I otherwise might have. He might have even managed to catch me with honey.

"It's a bit heavy, though," I said to him after I'd bought it. "Do you mind holding it here for me while I run other errands? Ill come back for it beofre i leave town. I'll even pay a holders fee."

"Fair enough lad, it's not taking up any more space than it was before. I'll even hold your other things if you want."

"I'd appreciate it," I replied. "The bag's getting pretty heavy."

I left his store and headed directly to the church, which oyaji had directed me to before we parted.


	9. Our Holy Order of Hypocrasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Does Not Learn to Read Because the Church Hates Her, and Discovers That things Can Always Get Worse.

As I traveled to the church with the high spire stabbing up at the sky atop what looked vaguely like a clocktower, I looked at the town around me sharply. I noted that people still crossed the street when I walked near them to avoid me or made some mysterior sign that looked a little bit like a triangle as though they were warding off evil. I also noted omething else that continued to bother me. 

_:The streets are too clean,:_ I thought to myself. 

I was accustomed to clean streets in my world, but in the less technologically advanced world of the twelve kingdoms, the streets of every town, no matter how well kept it was otherwise, were almost always dirty in one fashion or another. To achieve this level of cleanliness...

_:Maybe they use some kind of magic?:_ I wondered.

I didn't now yet how cheap or expensive it was to use magic in this world yet. For all I knew they had some sort of spell that did it.

:Or maybe everyone really uses their tax money to pay workers to keep them so swept up.:

Or... maybe they had slaves. That was how older civilizations did it. In the twelve kingdoms, there had been a heavenly law against slavery, but nothing preventing bonded servitude or indenture, and the loophole had been exploited without mercy. I hadn't seen any slaves yet, but that didn't mean that there were none either. If there were slaves, maybe I could buy one, like a gladiator or something, to fight for me?

During the time I was musing about the issue of slavery, I had come upon the church. Despite everyone accusing me of being a demon, I did not burst into flames when I crossed the threshold. My little friends, however, were smothered and extinguished by the holy aura of the place. Sadly, they would no longer be protecting me. 

_:That's fine, they're only balloons, there's plenty more where they came from.:_

The church was shiny white marble with rococo gold flourishes everywhere, kind of like pictures of the Palace of Versailles. The building was laid out in the shape of a cross with the front entrance at the bottom branch, thus the front door opened into a long corridor lined on either side with arched marble pillars holding up barrel-vaulted ceiling. On the wall under the arches on either side were wider niches decorated at regular intervals with marble statues of faceless saints wielding a spear, a sword or a bow, in a regular pattern, or stained glass windows depicting either a swordsman in blue glass, a spearman in red glass or a bowman in yellow glass. 

_:Hey wait... there's no Shield Hero!:_ I realized with a feeling of irritation. 

Curious now and wondering if there was a pattern, I went back to count the niches. I discovered that every fourth niche had had the window made of only plain glass with no art in it and a simple altar table placed underneath. Had there in fact once been a Shield Hero's depiction in a stained glass window and a statue and they'd replaced the window with plain glass and removed the statue? How much did these bastards mean to discriminate against me?

_:Wait, calm down,:_ I told myself and forced myself to inspect the statues and altars more closely.

_:There's dust on those other statues, they are not fresh,:_ I realized a moment later. _:Same goes for the altar, they've been there for a while too. That means they didn't get rid of the shield just because I got accused of a crime. In fact... it might actually be the **opposite**.:_

A few things were making a little bit more sense to me now. I'd had the feeling from the very beginning that I was somehow being discriminated against. Even before I was accused of rape, people had treated me differently; the king looked down on me, those priests who'd summoned me here seemed to find me distasteful, and every single person in the city seemed to dislike me except perhaps for oyaji and maybe the magic shop granny. What if their dislike stemmed from some sort of inherent discrimination against the legendary Shield Hero from the very beginning and not necessarily against _me_ personally?

_:It's possible,:_ I acknowledged. _:Once religion gets involved, people stop acting sensibly and their brains just turn to mush and pour out from their ears.:_

I continued on my way, hoping to find a reasonable priest or priestess among the lot of them to teach me how to read. The end of the entry way led up to a cross section that branched in three other directions and in the center of the cross-roads part of the church was a huge, monolithic hourglass that reached up into the great central spire that could be seen from anywhere in town. My shield buzzed at me like a cell phone, drawing me closer to it. 

_:I wonder what this is?:_ I thought curiously. _:My shield seems to be reacting to it.:_

I walked over and brought my shield close to the great floating hourglass that was not suspended by any mechanism that I could see. White crystal sand that glittered with an opalescent light flowed softly through the narrow part from the top chamber to the bottom and it was all decorated with gilding and fussy designs depicting dragons. When I brought my shield close to the surface a soft tone like wind-chimes came from within the hourglass and my shield began to resonate with it, buzzing softly. A small window popped up in my vision depicting a series of numbers and colons. One was a thirty, followed by a sixteen, followed by a forty-three as I looked at it for a small time, trying to decipher what it was, the forty-three on the far right changed to a forty-two.

_:Some sort of timer? It seems like it's counting down...:_

I felt uneasy. Unless it was New Years, countdowns were rarely a good thing. What could it be counting down to?

"Why are _you_ here?" An old woman with a scowling face and a suspicious squint intercepted me as I stood the giant hour glass trying to unravel its mystery. "How dare you enter this holy place? Your existence is an offense to the true God. A rapist like yourself doesn't _deserve_ to be forgiven for their crimes!"

"If your god is a true one," I replied forcing my tone to remain even. "Then it's my understanding that that is not _your_ decision to make. Now take me to your head priest or whatever."

"Such insolence from someone who doesn't feel the least bit of remorse for his heinous acts! Get out!" she shouted at me, filled with self-righteous fury.

"This isn't a merchant's shop," I said. "And I am not here to buy wares. It is the _duty_ of the priesthood to offer counsel to the lost and sanctuary to those who need it. I come seeking illumination, nothing more."

"I will summon our temple guards and throw you in our cells below," she hissed furiously at me.

_:I'm getting yelled at even by a nun! Whatever happened to judge not lest ye be judged?:_

It figured that even their priesthood would be corrupt and rotten to the core. I could see that I was not going to gain the knowledge I sought from this lot, so I'd just have to chalk this up to a wasted trip. 

"That won't be necessary, I've learned all I need to know from you. I'll see myself out," I growled back at her, meeting her glare with a fierce glare of my own.

I stalked right back down the aisle from whence I'd come and exited the church. 

_:So much for the priesthood being bastion of charity and goodness,:_ I thought with resentment. _:I guess that's one avenue of information closed to me.:_

Perhaps I should set aside the idea of learning to read for the time being since it didn't look like I was going to be able to find a teacher. The weapons shop keeper had said that I'd managed to make too many enemies in this town to ask for any favors. Maybe in another town I could find someone willing to teach me, I might be able to disguise myself if I could find a way to hide my shield. My stomach growled again so I figured that I could ponder my options and decide my next course over a meal.

I followed my nose to another roadside vendor, this one selling some kind of soup with sausages and something leafy in it along with what looked like potatoes. I ordered a large bowl and watched him like a hawk as he served it. It appeared that my reputation for dealing with demons had already preceded me for he carefully served me my food and I sat at the nearby little open air cafe table to eat it and plan my next move. During my purchases, I'd bought a map of the country nearby since that bitch Mein had taken my other one. I couldn't read the print on it, but I could go off what I remembered of the day before to plan my next move. My meal and strategy session was interrupted by three strangers; one of whom had the beer gut and eternally flushed face of a regular drunkard, another who looked like a genuine weasel, and a third who looked like nothing but trouble.

I'd been bullied enough time to see this set up coming a mile away.

"Hey there Shield Hero," the drunkard said. "I hear you're looking for adventurers to help you out..."

"We'd be happy ta take you on," his weaselly-looking friend said, exchanging a sly look with his friends. 

"I'm not a charity case," I said bluntly. "You work on commission. I take forty percent of our total earnings right off the top and I'll divide up the rest according to effort. You supply your own weapons and armor."

"Hey!" the drunkard said, cracking his knucles threateningly at me. "How dare you talk down to us, ya little shit! You're just a criminal. You need us."

"I need no-one," I snapped back hotly. "Now piss off."

I was going to need to go outside of town again and resupply myself of my er, "insurance," before too much longer. The church had eaten up my little friends, and so all I had right then was a bluff. 

"Why you little!" the drunkard said, taking a swing at me. Instinctively I raised my sheild. His fist clanged against it and I barely felt the impact like the mildest tickle. 

_:Nice,:_ I thought appreciatively. 

The three of them tried to leap at me and I used my assassin training to dodge out of the way. Sadly, I couldn't counter attack, and their attempt to dog-pile on me had knocked over my table and spilled my meal all over them. 

"Assholes just wasted the last of my dinner," I grumbled, turning to walk away. 

I heard the food vendor whose table had just gotten wrecked shouting obscenities at my back but I ignored him. It was in process of escaping the scene that I realized that I'd gotten so far away from the main strip that I didn't actually know where I was. The neighborhood didn't look all that dodgy, but crime could happen anywhere.

_:Crap,:_ I thought to myself, a knot of tension forming in my belly at the thought of being lost and alone and vulnerable in a dangerous area of town. _: I need to find my way back to--:_

Suddenly, someone seized me from behind. Before I could react to break his hold, a bag was slipped over my head. I felt a light tap on the side of my head that had no effect, and I struggled blindly.

"He's immune to attack, it looks like. What a hardy fellow!" one of my attackers said. "We'll have to double the price for him for all of our trouble."

_:Price? Oh, you must be joking me! I'm being kidnapped and sold? Shit!:_

At least it wasn't a brothel this time. I struggled and kicked, even as they tried to put a rope on me, I pushed and screamed and thrashed wildly since I couldn't feel any pain from striking out at them, I kicked even harder than I might have otherwise. Then I heard a hissing noise and the air suddenly smelled weird. My limbs got heavy and I felt dizzy. The edges of my eyes greyed, and I blacked out.


	10. Comrades in Chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine is Nearly Sold Off AGAIN, and Makes a New Friend, Or Something Like It.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here is where the story really diverges from the events in the source material. I decided to go a different route and play around with some of the hints of alternate ways things might have gone that were hinted at in the original text. Namely, in the Rising of the Shield Hero, Naofumi Iwatani is taken as a client and sold a slave but we later learn in dialogue that there had been offerings by unnamed clients to have him captured and sold as a slave. Also, in 12 kingdoms (the anime version of course) Yuka herself, along with Youko and Asano, was nearly captured and sold as a brothel slave so I thought it would fit doubly well as an new event int he story.

When I woke it was to the smell of dust and unwashed bodies, on a hard surface. My hands and legs were restrained by what felt like metal cuffs, and there was an itchy, coarse cloth sack over my head held in place by what felt like a loose, heavy metal collar. I listened around and heard rustlings and what sounded like the cries of caged animals. There was also quiet sobbing. I jerked my head from side to side, struggling to get the sack off from my head so i could take a look around and see what new situation my misfortune had landed me in.

:Figures,: I thought with an irritation that only barely held down the weepy-terror I felt at the possibility of having been captured, and the thought that this time I might not be so fortunate as to escape. As it turned out, there were things worse than being chained down and having rotted produce and excrement thrown at you while everyone reviles your name as a rapist. I shoved aside the traumatized thoughts of what I might have endured in the 12 kingdoms if we hadn't been quick enough to catch on to what Taki had planned for us by attempting to sell us off to a brothel that tried to rise up in my mind. There was time to be afraid later, right then, i needed to focus all of my energy on escape.

With a great deal of effort removed the cloth covering my head and was able to look around. 

The interior was dim, lit only by a few lanterns, and it seemed to be a cloth tent of some sort. Every where around me were cages, large ones, holding what looked like the hanjuu from the other world, the half-human half-animal people who could transform at will into their animal aspects. Most of them looked somewhat healthy, just utterly in despair, but there was a small collection toward the back that had an aura of death hanging about them. They were clearly too weak and too wounded to last much longer and had been cosigned to their fates like produce that was past its expiration date.

 _:Ugh, I feel sick,:_ I thought groggily, levering myself up into a sitting position. 

Gaining full consciousness brought a myriad of little aches and pains to my attention. The wrist that held my shield to my body was sore and there was a burning feeling on my sternum. I wriggled my wrists, testing my bonds and was not surprised to find that they were held tight. These guys after all, made their living by restraining people.

: _Well_ ,: I thought glumly. : _This sucks. Just when I thought my day couldn't get any worse...:_

I'd thought that being falsely accused of a crime and having shit thrown at me, tossed out of a church, and having everybody and their mother curse and spit at me and condemn me for a crime I didn't commit was bad. Now I was apparently about to be sold into slavery. 

"It doesn't seem to have any effect, ye-es," a man's voice from outside of the tent said. "Likewise the shield itself is not a separate commodity, ye-es."

"You mean you can't put a slave-controller on him?" another voice, sounding haughty and aristocratic. "I paid good money to have the Shield Hero as my slave, and now you're telling me that there's no way to control him."

"A slave-binding mark has no effect," the apparent slave-dealer replied. "But there are other methods to bring one to heel, yes. A time of starvation and beatings will break his spirit, yes, and make him willing to obey commands, yes."

 _:Oh, so it's like that then?:_ I thought rebelliously. _:Well I'm not sticking around. If this is anything like the games I usually play, there should be some kind of lock-picking function built into my character screen...:_

I wriggled closer to the gate of my cage to see if I couldn't get a closer look at the lock. My shield, bless it, vibrated at me. With a feeling of dawning hope surging in me, brought it closer and the jewel in the center reacted to the lock on my cage. 

**Lockpick Shield unlocked!** a text announced.   
**Equipment bonus +1 Lockpicking.**  
 **Ability: Skill unsealed: Lockpicking.**

The lock on my collar started to vibrate and my heart leapt when a familiar-looking window appeared before my vision that featured the lockpicking mini-game I knew like the back of my hand from all of the many hours I had spent playing the RPG. It was a ghostly image of a lock with one pick inserted into the center and another held off to one side. I had a chance to escape! There was a number at the corner, 3, and I assumed that this was the number of tries I had to pick the lock. 

_:A lock on a slave-merchants cage holding special merchandise would be... probably one of the best on the market,:_ I thought with some trepidation. _:So that would make this expert or adept level lock and I only have a novice's skill.:_

And I only had three tries to get it right. Fortunately for me, I'd spent so many hours on that game picking locks because I liked high quality loot, that I felt fairly confident of my skill. Still, I didn't want to waste even one precious chance. I went slowly and oh so very, _very_ carefully. When I probed the directions to seek out my sweet spot, I backed off the very instant I felt my shield vibrate in warning. Even so, I wasted one precious pick on finding the spot. Finding it, however, was the hard part, the rest from there was easy enough for someone who'd probably clocked in hours by now doing it. The second chance removed the lock! My unwanted necklace fell off and I caught it before it could clink to the ground of my slave-cage.

I watched my Lockpick Shield level up by one and felt a thrill of exultation run through me. I turned my attention to the locks on my wrists, and my lockpick mini-game popped up again, this time showing that I had four picks to start with.

 _:Huh, I must gain another chance every time I level the Shield,:_ I thought. 

The lock on the wrist cuffs was significantly less challenging than the one for my collar but even so, it still took me two tries. The lock around my ankle-cuff, chaining me to my cage for good measure I supposed, netted me another level. I then turned my attention to the first of the locks on my cage proper, already sensing that it was going to be a very difficult challenge.

No sense in being cocky or wasteful, I still didn't have very many chances, and this lock was probably one of the most powerful in this world. I was a Sheild Hero after all so _someone_ must have considered me a valuable commodity. What a crappy way to have special treatment! I carefully, carefully started to pick the lock on the cage. My heart pounded as the damn lock broke three of my lockpicks in quick succession without revealing the sweet spot. I was down to two last tries. I wanted to cry when my third pick broke and I had just barely managed to find the damn sweet spot. When I heard the glorious sound of the lock releasing on my very last try I could have wept with joy and relief, but I didn't have that luxury. I still had to get out of there, and that was probably going to be the most difficult part. I had some small bit of training in stealth thanks to that king of Kou, but most of that training had involved me ending lives Assassins Creed style, with a shiv. I really really wished my Legendary Shield would let me have a shiv, right then.

I carefully pushed the door open, praying that it wouldn't make any noise.

"Psst!" a voice hissed next to me. 

I froze.

"If you can pick locks, unlock mine as well," the person in the cage next to mine said.

I looked over to the source of the noise, surprised to note that, unlike all of the rest of the beastmen and hanjuu in all of the other cages everywhere, the fellow who had addressed me appeared to be fully human. He had skin that was a dark shade of pale, as though he was originally more darkly complected but that he'd been out of the sun for so long that it had turned him unusually pale for his complexion. His long hair was white, and so unkempt that it was almost matted, and his eyes were piercing, direct and somewhat fierce-looking. It was strange, he was supposed to be a slave, but he gave off an aura of a man who wasn't going to loose to either enemies or misfortune. He had manacles on his wrists and ankles, a neck chain and three locks on his door. 

_:Geeze, they really aren't taking chances with him,:_ I thought. _:He must be a really dangerous guy for them to chain him up like that!:_

Either that or really inconvenient to someone with a lot of power.

"Sorry," I whispered back. "I'm having enough trouble just watching out for my own neck. I do promise however, that I'll get the town guard to come and free you."

I figured that this slave-dealing operation couldn't _possibly_ be legal. After all, they were doing business out of a tent and not an actual slave market, so there was probably no official sanction for the slave trade, and thus, the law was bound to disrupt it. If I went and got a city official, they should arrest the law breakers, right?

"No good," he hissed back. "Who do you think looks the other way, child? There's too much interest invested by those with power and money." 

I paused, frowning. 

_:And those with power and money can afford to buy the law,:_ I finished for him mentally.

I really wouldn't have put it past that damned corrupt king to unofficially sanction a slave trade, especially if his nobles were pressuring him to do it. He didn't exactly strike me as a man with a will of iron. It figured that every one in the royal court with that damn king would be as corrupt as he was

 _:Still, not really my problem,:_ I thought, looking longingly at the open door to my cage and the promise of freedom if I could just sneak out.

Escape was so temptingly close and every fearful instinct within me was urging me to make a break for it.

_:I've got enough on my plate. I don't really want to get involved.:_

"What do you expect me to do about it?" I hissed back. 

"Let me out of this cage," he replied readily. 

Every second I wasted talking with this fellow was another moment that the slavers who'd kidnapped me could come back and block off my escape. I really just wanted to get out. I was torn between fear for myself and a dawning feeling of pity for someone in a position even more wretched than my own. He did not have a Lockpicking Sheild. It was clear he could see the indecision on my face for he looked at me with censure. I still hesitated, wanting to run away. It was that very moment that the words of a book I had read once came to me.

'Character," it had said. "Is not the person we are when things are going well and everything is easy. It is the people we become when things are at their worst."

I'd already become a despicable person once in my life and had it proven to me that my character was rotten. I had thought I'd learned my lesson, and I'd promised myself that no matter what, if I was given the opportunity, I'd do the right thing. After all, I was supposed to be a hero, right?

"Fine," I hissed back. "Keep a lookout, and hiss if someone comes. Oh, and I'm not doing this for free. I need a fighter to fight alongside me, and it looks like you just volunteered."

"Hardly a volunteer," he remarked dryly. "But if you will release me from imprisonment child, I will swear my sword to you. _For a time._ I have important matters of my own that I must attend to."

I could respect that he was upfront with me about it. I really only needed a temporary arrangement, just enough to help me to my feet again.

"Good enough," I agreed, essentially sealing our deal.

I turned my attention to the locks on his manacles. Getting his hands, neck and feet unbound leveled up my locpicking sheild, so score for me. Sometimes generosity was its own reward. More or less, anyway. The locks on his cages was difficult, but perseverance netted me two more levels. That meant that the locks I was picking should be getting a little bit easier for me.

Once his locks were undone we both carefully eased out of our cages. The enslaved beastmen and hanjuu, seeing us escaping, started to quietly make noise, asking us to help them get free as well. I tired to gesture silently for them all to shut up and quickly gave it up as a lost cause. I heaved a frustrated huff, glared at them all for putting me in that position, and crouched down, silently looking for a key. I heard a pinging vibration from my shield and a little Icon appeared in my vision right where the cross-hairs would have been. It was two short, flat lines next to a dot with the word 'hidden' under it. 

Sheild unlocked!   
**Stealth Sheild.**  
 **Ability (unlocked): Eagle Vision**  
 **Equipment bonus +1 Sneak.**

 _:Really?:_ I demanded flatly. _:In a fantasy RPG? Really? That's not even the right genre!:_

Still, nothing loath to gain an advantage, with a twist of my thoughts I activated the Eagle Vision and the world went grey. Enemies were highlighted in red, the main enemy, a short little fellow wearing a silk coat, a top-hat and coke-bottle spectacles was illuminated in yellow and there was a desk in the far room lit up blue. The keys were in there. I looked sharply at my companion, pointed out where the enemies were and indicated that he was to keep watch. I snuck over to the desk drawer and activated my lockpicking skill. it was a toughie, and I nearly lost my last chance, but somehow I just barely managed to get it open. I pulled out the keys and snuck over to the nearest cages, unlocking them and gesturing for silence. If they started moving around it would alert the guards and we'd all be kinda screwed. 

Whenever the guards patrolling the tent moved, I signaled my partner in this breakout of the change in position, even as I hurried through figuring out which key fit which lock and unlocked cages as fast as I could. I was three quarters of the way through the process when one of the guards started to stride purposefully toward the entrance, I frantically signaled my white-haired companion that there was one coming toward us. He took a position just behind the door, and when the guard strolled in, covered his mouth and brought him down quietly like a professional. I highly approved. 

When I got to the back of the cages, the one with all of the slaves that were considered hopeless and were just left to die, I noted with disgust that one of them was a child. She was sick and dirty and had a cough. I gestured for silence as I unlocked her cage and the two poor broken-limbed beastmen next to her. I stole a sharp-edged little knife from the desk and while I was rifling through the drawers my shield reacted to a bottle of ink in there. I shrugged and poured the ink into the jewel, absorbing it. A window let me know that I'd unlocked a new sheild called Slave-Tamer Shield. 

_:Sheesh, what kind of unpleasant shield is that?:_ I wondered. 

I signaled my new partner toward the back of the tent. I mimed slicing down the cloth and taking out the two guards positioned there. He nodded and it was done. Me and the other slaves slipped quietly out of the back of the tent and into the night. I signaled my companion that we were going to peel off from the rest of the group as we all ran as quickly as we could through the streets to freedom putting as much distance between ourselves and the slave-tent as possible before stopping. Going by vague memory and a half-completed mini-map, I managed to find the main street. By this time it was fully dark. I panted as we ducked into an alley to catch our breath.

"Nicely done," my new sword-companion said with a grave sort of courtesy. 

"You too, good work," I said with a nod of approval. "Now come over here, I have to mark you as mine."

Unlike the other Heroes, i had not ever formed a party. When I had partnered up with that bitch Mein Sophia, I hadn't seen anything like a Party function in my Status Screen. The Help menu was, as always, less than helpful. The unlocking of the Slave-Tamer Shield, however, had given me an idea for a workaround to my apparent lack of a party function. If I couldn't form a party through regular means, then I could just mark him as my slave and share his XP that way. It wasn't pleasant, but I'd do what I had to do.

"I beg your pardon," he said flatly.

"Listen," I said. "You gave me your word that you'd be my sword, at least temporarily. For some reason, I don't know if my Legendary Shield's just defective or what, I don't have any way to make a party with you and I need a way to share XP or when the Calamity comes, I'm dead. I also don't know for certain if I can trust you. In short, I need a little insurance, now hold still."

"Wait... you are teh Shield Hero of this world? One of the Four Legendary sainted Heroes?" he asked, looking down at me in surprise.

"I'm not so sure that there's anything Saintly about any of us to be honest," I said a bit bitterly.

After all, they _had_ turned their backs on me, and not allowed me to present my evidence to prove my innocence.

"Sadly for you, you got stuck with the lest heroic out of all of them. I'm the evil Shield Hero."

I changed shield to the Slave-Tamer Shield, which had some kind of fancy, unpleasant-looking magical seal-stamp on it, wet with ink on its surface. I pressed it against my new sword-companion's bared chest and the ink transferred over, flashing brightly with magic for a moment then dimming to a dark glow. I menu screen popped up in my vision with a long list of settings with check-boxes and sliders next to them. It listed everything from what his allowable actions were, how far his radius extended, what the ratio of XP we shared would be, and other things. I skimmed it, made my selections and dismissed my Slave-Tamer Shield.

"There, done. We're in this ship together now... welcome aboard, there's no life boats and we're taking on water," I informed him, sighing.

It looked like I only had a choice of recruiting help by unpleasant means. Well, if that was what it took , then that was what it took. Those levels weren't going to raise themselves. I only had a shield to work with, so unless I wanted to become a craft-character who couldn't fight, I needed a way to earn combat experience. The only way to do that was to destroy enemies and it seemed so far that the only way to do that was to make someone fight for me. It looked like I'd just hired a slave or something like it.

"What's your name?" I asked him.

"Gyousou Saku," he replied with a strangely dignified sort of aura about him.

I got an odd sort of feeling that I wasn't dealing with an ordinary man. I couldn't quite describe it, but I'd felt this feeling once or twice before, in the other world. I pushed away the unpleasant memories of that time.

"You can call me Sugimoto," I told him. "That'll do for now."

My new warrior gave me an odd probing look and I simply stared hard back at him, in challenge. He shrugged a bit, as though it was my prerogative to say or not say whatever I wanted, and turned his attention back to business. There was a soft cough behind us and we looked back. The sickly little girl with the matted fluffy tail and racoon-dog ears coughed quietly at the entrance of the alleyway we'd taken shelter in.

"Forgive me for the intrusion," she said hesitantly. "I'm Raphtalia, and I... I would gladly serve the Hero of the Shield."

I looked back at her in dismay. No matter which way you looked at it, she was a child. And not a borderline child either, like fourteen or fifteen, no this was a genuine, bonafide _child_ , like she was maybe eight or nine! No way was I dragging such a little kid out along with me to fight monsters in the wilderness and eventually face waves of Calamity. Even I had limits on what I was willing to do and creating child-soldiers was within those limits.

"It's a nice thought," I said. "But you're too little. I'd have to spend all of my time worrying about you and I have other things I need to do right now."

"But..." she teared up. "I have no-where else to go!"

I scratched my neck uncomfortably. She was starting to cry.

"I feel bad for you," I said. "But I can't take you with me, kid. I need people who can fight."

"I can fight! I'll learn, I promise!" she said desperately. "I'll fight hard, just please don't send me away, they'll catch me again and I'll die!"

"You gotta be kidding me," I muttered. 

I looked over at Gyousou, who looked like he was about to take her hand and be all nice to her.

"We can't take her with us!" I snapped at him to forestall his sympathy putting more work on us both. "Look at her, she's too little. We're going into a battlefield, and we don't have the luxury to be babysitters."

Gyousou turned back to me with his spine straight and his gaze direct, with this incredible aura about him.

"What else is a shield for, but to protect?" he demanded of me.

I couldn't help the frustrated noise that escaped me.

"That's sounds fine if you say that," I muttered, then looked at the kid. "But... look. Monsters, Ok? There's gonna be a lot of them, and then there's gonna be a lot more. Can you face them without flinching? Can you fight them without fear?"

"I have no-where else," she wept.

I sighed. I wasn't taking her with me, but maybe I could impose on someone kind-hearted enough to take her in. It looked like I was going to need to see oyaji again. The list of favors I owed him just kept getting bigger and bigger.

"Come on then," I grumbled. "Let's see if I can't arrange something for you, kid."

We found the weapon-shop just as it was closing up. The oyaji took one look at my obviously-a-slave companions and sighed with disappointment, muttering

"I don't know if I should blame you or if the whole world's just gone down the tubes."

"These aren't _my_ slaves," I replied defensively. 

The oyaji, to his credit signalled us all inside to hear me out.

"There's a limit to aggressive recruiting," he told me. "I guess you have an explanation for all this then?"

"I was just kidnapped by some slave-dealer and his minions and they were gonna sell me off, but I escaped and freed the other slaves," I said, leaving out the part where I'd had to be prompted to stick my neck out. "These guys just decided to come along with me. The warrior I'll keep, but I was hoping I might be able to bribe you into a favor. I still have silver left, and this kid has no place else to go. I will pay you a silver to take her in, plus an additional three coppers a week to keep her hidden and out of trouble until all the fuss dies down. You can have her work in the shop, just... y'know, treat her well."

Oyaji smiled at me a little bit, seeming relieved and I frowned, not wanting him to take me for some sort of softie.

"Ten silvers to take her on and a silver a week for upkeep," he replied gamely, countering my low opening bid.

Really, he was gonna haggle over what amounted to free labor? 

"Ha," I replied with a flat look. "You get two silvers, and ten coppers a month for upkeep." 

"Done," he said. 

"Alright Raphtalia,"I said turning to her. "You get to stay here. This man will keep you safe."

"But..." she looked at me tearfully.

"But nothing," I said flatly. "I'm not taking you out into the field with me, and that is final."

She slumped down a bit but accepted it. I took my travel pack that I'd left in the shop earlier this hell-day with the intention of picking it up later and thanked the old man for watching it for me.

"I'll need to gear up my companion too," I said sighing and frowning as I checked my Coin Shield for how much coin I had left, which was a whole lot less than what I'd started with despite my attempts at frugality.

"I assume much the same gear as for your companion before?" the oyaji said, looking a bit amused at my pinched expression as he pulled out an array of sturdy slightly worn armor that was still in good condition in the man's size and a selection of well maintained swords.

Gyousou looked over the selection with an eye that clearly knew what he was about and selected two items, worn but in excellent condition. He shrugged on the armor like a seasoned solder and gave the sword he'd selected a few swings to test it for balance.

"It's better that it has been broken in," Gyousou said, nodding in satisfaction with his choice. "And the previous owner had good bathing habits, not as common a thing as it should be in my opinion."

I suppressed a smile of agreement. When I bought second-hand, one of my primary metrics was a good ol' smell test. While Gyousou was trying out his new gear the oyaji fussed about in the upper level of the store, clearly making a little nest for his new housemate, the raccoon girl whose name I'd already forgotten. 

I turned to Gyousou.

"Just so we're clear," I said. "While I fully understand that our arrangement is temporary, gratitude doesn't last forever after all, I am going to need to nail down a minimum timeframe."

Acceptable," he said a bit shortly. "And fairly sensible for someone of your age. Surprisingly so. How long were you looking at?"

"I was kidnapped from my world to fight these things called Waves of Calamity in this one," I said. "But due to circumstances outside my control, there was..."

I hesitated, uncertain precisely how much I wanted to say right then. It had been a rough couple of days for me.

"Let's call it an incident and leave it at that for now," I said with a frustrated sigh. "This left me unable to gain comrades to help me level up with, and a tank needs a party to gain experience effectively. I think that if i can make a name for myself and prove that I can go into battle and not be a liability, I'll be able to recruit other adsventurers on my own. However, I'll need to prove myself first. If I can just prove my worth during the next Wave of Calamity, that should give me enough of a good reputation that at least someone will be willing to join up with me. Sign on with me as my sword for the next Wave of Calamity and I won't make any further demands than that. Sound fair?"

He nodded.

"That sound's fair," he said.

I extended my hand to him and he reached back to me. We shook on it, sealing the deal.


	11. Information is Worth it Weight in Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Teams Up with a New Companion and Purchases Information.

"A few more questions before we head out, Ol' man," I said.

"Go ahead," the shopkeep said good-naturedly. "It's good to see a Hero smart enough to ask questions rather than running around assuming they know everything."

"Sounds like you've heard something," I said in an interested tone.

"Word gets around," the man said with a casual shrug.

I put a five-copper piece on the table.

"Word could get around to _me_..." I said leadingly.

"Well the Spear Hero hass only been out in the field _three days_ and his party's changed up already. He's popular well enough, but... how to put it. He's popular with the sort of adventurer who doesn't mind letting others take most of the load. The _real_ adventurers, the ones who are in it for the fight, quickly either strike out on their own, or join with one of the other Heroes."

"Think they might be persuaded to join up with _me_?" I asked, perking up with hope.

After all, my new sword here had said that he was only along for a time before he had his own concerns to handle.

"Not with your reputation lad," the shopkeep said. 

I tried not to let my disappointment and frustration show. That was fine, as soon as I managed to get things rolling, I should be able to do well enough for myself. 

"Next question has to do with geography," I said. "I bought a local map, but I lack a knowledge of the big picture. I take it that this Melromarc isn't the only kingdom in this world."

"Nah lad. It's one of four large kingdoms on this landmass. There's Melromarc, Scheildfreiden, Siltvelt and Faubrey as well as a few smaller kingdoms that split off from them and formed their own independent countries, the two best known of these are Zeltoble, which is led by a merchant-council headed up by the Dohj, and the mysterious and reclusive sea-side kingdom of Qiten'Lo."

"I see," I said. "Are any of these other places experiencing difficulties, do you know?"

"I wouldn't know that," the shopkeeper said. "But legend has it that the Calamity doesn't discriminate between kingdoms."

I nodded to myself, keeping my expression hidden. If there was one thing I had learned for the best in the Twelve Kingdoms it was that, if things weren't going your way in one kingdom, it was always possible to emigrate. Even if they seemed to have it in for me _here_ , at least in those other lands I wasn't wrongly accused of a crime. These guys thought that I was going to be spending all of my time leveling up to fight their stupid Calamity for them, but there was nothing stopping me from jumping the border to another country. Perhaps in another land they'd be a little more grateful to have somebody fighting for them since it sounded a bit odd that only one kingdom would get all four heroes.

:Now that I think about it, that does seem a bit fishy to me,: I mused. :If there's four main kingdoms and only a few smaller ones that apparently split off later, then it logically would make sense that there should be one Hero for each kingdom, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I wonder why.:

Dismissing my useless woolgathering, I brought my thoughts back around to what would directly benefit me, namely that if I could make it to another kingdom's ruler before a letter from _this_ idiot king and explain the situation to that ruler and present my "evidence" in defense, chances were decent that I would at least receive asylum in their land. 

_:And even if that doesn't work out, there might be some **other** advantage I can gain by distancing myself from this place.:_ I thought.

But before I got to thinking about jumping ship essentially, I needed something first, something more valuable than anything. I needed information. Specifically, I needed information about my Legendary Weapon. The stupid thing came with a supposed "Help Menu" but it was the least helpful thing about my Legendary Weapon. It explained nothing. I still hadn't figured out a viable way to use it, and with the attitude in the church so antagonistic to me and every other hand in the kingdom raised against me, the only other persons I might be able to ask about how to use and level my weapon was the other Heroes. And they did not like me. I had to get that information, my life literally depended on it. If I couldn't ask them outright, then my new sneaky-shield had just shown me another way to get information. I'd use underhanded tactics to learn how they used their legendary weapons and then i could work on leveling up my own.

"Next question," I said to the shop-keep. "You hear anything about where the other Heroes went to?"

I needed more information about how my Shield worked, and the other Heroes were the most likely bet.

"Spear went off to the east, Sword to the south and Bow to the west," he said promptly. "Why are you interested?"

"The king said that our weapons react badly if we're in proximity to each other while we gain power," I said shading the real truth for my interest.

"I see, trying to gain an edge huh. Well any more questions lad?" he asked.

I thought about it then shook my head. 

"No, thank you for everything you've done. You've been decent."

He snorted

"High praise," he said dryly.

He had _no_ idea.

"Well, I guess this is goodbye for a while," I said. 

Gyousou met the shopkeeps eyes and extended his hand for a shake. The had that look of two old veterans taking each other's measure.

"Take care of the little scrapper," Oyaji said.

_:What am I, his unmarried daughter?:_ I thought to myself, a bit nettled that I was being dismissed already.

"He'll be ready to fight," Gyousou said. "I'll see to it."

I tried not to interject into their solemn moment of manly camaraderie about us noobs in the younger generation, but I was looking to get a move on before dawn caught us out on the streets. Once we left the shop with a final goodbye to the old man, I picked checked my map and headed toward the west gate at a good clip.

"Why head this way?" he asked curiously of me when he noticed that we were not headed north as I had more or less hinted that I would be. "If you venture in this direction there is a chance that you will run into the spear-hero."

"That's the general idea," I murmured back. 

"Ah, you're going to go and plead your case with him one on one and prove your innocence?" he surmised.

"No," I said flatly, stomach burning a bit with remembered anger at the way the Spear Hero, Motoyasu, was the first to condemn me. "It is merely that of the three of them, he's the most likely to have stuck close to civilization. I'll have an easier time tracking him down."

"Why?" Gyousou demanded warily, obviously thinking that I mean to get up to some mischief.

"Information," I said. "Out of the four of us, I play the online-style games the least. Most of my experience gaming-wise comes from single player games which can be quite different in the way they're structured from online games. The help menu in my Legendary Weapon was the least helpful thing I've ever read, and it only seems to fill me in on what I already know."

"So you want to ask them about their weapons!"

"No, well yes, but not exactly," I said. "If I approach them and ask them about it openly, they'd refuse to share what they know."

"Because you are a criminal?"

"Because I was _sentenced for a crime_ , yes," I corrected him. "They'll likely take a bit of satisfaction in denying me to my face, which is why I have no intention of approaching them directly."

The Stealth Shield had given me an idea. 

Gyousou said nothing further, but he looked very much like a man who had suddenly found himself in the company of a person he wasn't at all sure could be trusted. Well, honestly, that made two of us really. He seemed like an honest sort of man, but I'd certainly been fooled before. It wouldn't do to let my guard down just yet.

As the sun rose over the fields and large numbers of beastmen and demi-humans started to emerge from barracks-like buildings under the sight of whip-wielding overseers to work the fields. Another thing clicked into place. The nobility probably supported the slave trade so that they would have plenty of cheap or even free labor to work their fields instead of having to pay peasants instead.

_:I wonder how much of the economy, locally and nationally, depends on the slave trade,:_ I mused to myself as we entered the wide-open, demon-infested fields.

Now was as good a time as any to get familiar with our battle-flow. Even though I didn't have any of the usual tools that a tank employed in battle, no way of marking my enemies nor of determining their aggro-level, it was still important to form good battle-habits early on. I told my new "sword" Gyousou about the basic tank-and-DPS strategy. I would rush the enemies as the tank and attract all their attention. I made certain to stress that as the tank, I must always go _first_! I hated it when the DPSers rushed ahead of the tank and pulled all the aggro, it just messed up the field. I explained to him that his job was to destroy the enemy from the flanks while I kept their attention, hopefully, locked on me. 

"Will you not be hurt?" he questioned a bit dubiously. 

"Nah, my defense-stat is off the hook," I said. "They could chew on me all week long and I wouldn't feel a thing. Let's go."

I rushed forward, slamming into the balloons one by one and wishing I could shield-lob at them to pull them in from a distance instead of needing to run up to them, or that I had a skill that could make a wide-range pull for multiple enemies. Once I got their attention, Balloons were all quick to pull a zerg-fest on me, but I worried privately, a bit, about later enemies. What about bosses? What about mobs with higher distraction-levels? I needed a way to determine whether I was holding aggro or not, and I couldn't do that without learning about my Legendary Weapon, it seemed. Still the strategy worked as well as I had hoped it would, and my new partner and I made our way at a steady, ground-eating pace through the fields of youma. Once we got into a groove, our pace increased and we started making good time in the direction I'd chosen.

"You seem to be heading in a particular direction and pushing toward it," Gyousou noted when we paused for a drink form a nearby stream. 

"The nearest town is another half a day in this direction," I said, looking at my map. "If we push, we can reach it before nightfall. If we kill enemies along the way, we might make it to level three before we reach the town. That playboy Motoyasu looks like he's a softie who wouldn't ever expect to spend a night camping out on the ground. My bet is that we'll find him eating and sleeping at the inn, there."

"I see, and how do you expect to press him for information if he dislikes you so?" Gyousou asked.

I smirked a little bit.

"A boy might feel the need to posture in front of other _boys_ , but he likes nothing better than to brag about himself to a _girl_ ," I said knowledgeably. "If he can make himself sound smart by explaining something to her, you won't get him to shut up. Well, let's just say I'm not all that worried about getting information out of that guy."

Gyousou's mouth twitched in what looked like amusement for him.

"I wish dearly that I could correct your assertion, but having known many young men of such temperament, I would be lying," he said dryly.

We pressed on through the fields, came upon a forest and there we encountered our first new types of enemies. It was a weird-looking shell with legs and when I smacked it with my shield to attract its anger, Gyousou gave a well-practiced swing of his sword and cracked it open, splattering the nasty yolky innards every where. The insides, sadly, were _quite_ inedible but I picked up the shell as a drop since I had yet to encounter a youma like this one, and let it absorb into my shield. 

My shield changed form until it looked like... a giant _wok_?! What kind of weird shield was _this_? By its position on the menu, egg shields were one of the branches off the balloon shields.

**Unlocked! Egg Shield** , a text informed me.  
 **Equip Skill: Culinary.**

"Hey!" I said, pleased. "This one gave me a cooking skill! That'll be useful, right?"

If I could cook our meals, that meant that I could save coin by not needing to eat at an inn.

"Depends," Giysou said, looking around him. "Can we find any creature that we can eat?"

"I'm sure they're around here somewhere," I said optimistically. 

We continued on through the small forest, killing different color variations of the egg, like blue, egg, and green egg, both of which gave me skill bonuses related to cooking, like craft recipes and ingredient bonuses.

The sun was beginning to set in earnest as we cleared the forest and saw the lights of a good sized little village in the distance. I was saved from having to guess about where I would locate my target by the sight of the spear-wielding playboy and his coterie of fangirls all making toward an inn. I activated my Stealth Shield and pinged them with Eagle Vision. Just like in a certain game with assassins in it, my targets lit up gold. and I motioned Gyousou to follow me and stay close. 

As fortune would have it, just outside of the inn, I caught sight of a voluptuous and beautiful woman, who my target gave more than just a passing glance to. _Perfect_. I deactivated stealth and switched to my Coin Shield, vending out some silver to pay for a bribe and promptly hid my shield into its miniature bangle-form so that she didn't catch on that I was another Hero before I approached her. I waited for Motoyasu to go inside before I approached the young woman.

"Miss," I said, strolling up to her. "How would you like to make a little coin?"

"I'm not _that_ sort, if that's what you're after," she said frowning at me in insult. 

"No, no," I assured her hastily. "Lovely as you are, my aims are a little more... oblique. I just want you to find a seat and the Spear Hero's table and engage him in a little conversation, see if you can get him to talk with you about his weapon."

"What's in it for me?" she asked, her eyes turning shrewd.

I flipped a silver coin at her.

"Keep talking," she said with wary interest. 

"Just see if you can get him to explain to you how his weapon works, how he improves its strength." I said. "All you really have to do is act awed and amazed by whatever he says to you."

"Sweetie," she said, smirking a bit condescendingly at me. "The day I need lessons in how ta chat up a man is the day I hang up my apron."

I nodded respectfully to her.

"And I won't do it for less than five silvers," she added.

I quirked my mouth to one side, not really wanting to part with that much coin, but I was willing to take speed over cost. My window of opportunity wasn't large. I gave her three more silver coins and promised the rest when she'd finished for the evening. While my agent was sauntering over to Motoyasu's table I activated my Sneak Shield again and slipped around the round the side. My Stealth Shield kept me and my sword (who was in my "party" (though he was technically my slave) into the room. We grabbed a table at the back facing away from my target just in case his Spear gave him the ability to roll a perception check or something, and I pulled my hood up for good measure. The Listening Skill on my Stealth Shield worked exactly like it did in the assassin's games and when it came to "eavesdropping quests." As long as I stayed within the area indicated by the yellow circle and kept my target lit up by Eagle Vision, I could hear every word at his table clear as a bell.

The pert young woman I'd hired to get the dirt from Motoyasu, true to her word, managed to finagle a place right next to the Spear Hero at his table, despite the ire of his companions. With an ease and expertise that I could only admire and mentally take notes on, she began to chat him up. She was _good_! She started with a pitcher of wine, keeping his goblet topped, and leaned on him with a wide-eyed breathless wonder, assuring him that he was the most amazing and clever specimen of manhood she'd ever encountered. I tried not to gag at that.

It was also an enormous effort of will for me to keep focused on my mission and the conversation when the woman who'd ruined my life and good name in this world sat at that table freely, looking like she didn't have a care in the world. I wanted her dead more than anything, and if she didn't have so many companions around her, I'd have strangled her barehanded without the use of a weapon!

_:Focus Yuka!:_ I admonished myself sharply, forcing my attention away from my personal vendetta and the delights to be had from murder. _:Concentrate on the job, you can't botch this up!:_

"So how does it work?" my spy asked Motoyasu curiously. "A clever and handsome man like you must be increasing your strength _soo_ much faster and stronger than the _other_ Heroes, you must have figured out the way it's done the _best_."

That idiot Motoyasu was not in the least suspicious, though his companions were less than pleased with the simpering interloper.

"Well, not to brag," he said, totally preparing to brag. "But my Legendary Weapon grants me an amazing ability to use Weapon Copy to copy new Spear types for free, so I can unlock all of the best ones early."

"That's amazing!" she gushed. "You must have unlocked all of the most powerful ones by now!"

"Actually," he said in a condescendingly bragging tone. "It doesn't really matter how powerful or not a spear type is right off the bat. I could kill a dragon with a rusty pitchfork if I mod it enough. My Legendary weapon has the ability to make each spear type more and more powerful by tempering it with different types of ore using demon drops as a catalyst to get the tempering to take. Different types and amounts of ores have different stackable abilities, and the type of drop I use can grant special buffs and spirit enchants when I get the tempering to take. With the right ores and the right combination of drops, I could turn a twig into a god-killer, babe!"

_:Hmm... interesting,:_ I thought, noting it. 

It sounded a bit similar to a system I had run across once before, but... I hadn't seen anything like those options offered in my menu. Was my shield somehow _different_ from his spear and he just simply had a different method of leveling his up?

He expanded helpfully on his system for a while and I listened with interest, but with a vanishing sense of hope for learning anything useful. The only thing it seemed like our weapons had in common so far was that they both had a skill tree for unlocking new weapons.

"I think I've learned everything useful I'm going to," I said as the bitch Mein finally managed to shoo off my agent.

We slipped out the back unnoticed as waited around to meet up with my agent to give her the rest of her pay. She came around to the front again, looking for her payment. I passed her my coins and thanked her then turned to Gyousou, who was looking at me with a measuring look I elected to ignore.

"Let's head out," I said. "It might be nice to sleep in a bed, but I'd like to be caught in town even less, and there's no telling whether or not that girl's going to turn around and sell the information about me sying on him to him in the morning. If she does, I'd rather be long gone."

Gyousou sighed and rolled his eyes a bit at my sneaky tactics, but he didn't understand how little I could afford to trust people. We walked out of town headed towards the south and pitched up my new tent in the woods. The shop-keeper had done me a huge favor... it was a magic sort of tent. The box had a button on it that, when I pushed it, made the tent unfurl itself and then rise up on its poles. The cloth of it stiffened into something that was about as hard as a fingernail. What convenient magic! We quickly made camp and turned in.

As I lay in my bedroll, waiting for sleep, I tried looking at the weapons menu, just to see if maybe I had missed the tabs for what I'd heard that idiot Motoyasu talking about. I didn't see the supposed buttons he used for his system, and with a small sigh of disappointment and turned over and went to sleep. In the morning, I'd try the next Hero on my list. Hopefully I'd have better luck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Funny coincidence, when I first picked up Witcher 3:Wild Hunt, I thought that Geralt of Rivia looked just like how I pictured Gyousou Saku of Tai to look as a person. I'd also always head-cannoned privately that Yuka, being the fantasy nerd that she is, would have encountered some of the translations of the Witcher books, or perhaps even the game like I did, and would absolutely have drawn the same comparison. Anyway, that's just my fun head cannon about Yuka and Gyousou. 
> 
> PS if you're sitting here reading this and you have yet to log into netflix and watch the new TV series of the Witcher with the absolutley scrumptious (and on point!) Henry Cavil as the Witcher... well stop reading right now and go do that!


	12. Spying on the Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine, Having Decided that Playing Nice Hasn't Ever Gotten Her Anywhere, Decides Employ Covert Opperations to Gain the Foothold She Needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The light novels (or at least the translation I'd found of them) don't explain the weapons systems very well and the anime barely touches on it at all, so if you want a really good, thourough, understandable and well put together explanation about how each legendary weapon opperates, look no further than this youtube video which was of immense use to me.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHuGrQa-M7s&t=446s

I woke early the next morning to the smell of cooking fish. Gyousou had, sometime while I'd been asleep, been down to the river to catch fish. 

_:He seems like a useful sort of fellow to have around,:_ I thought cautiously. 

We hadn't actually spent a whole lot of time together, and most of that was slaying monsters. I had come under the impression that he wasn't a big fan of my ways of gaining information. I repressed a small pang of guilt at the subterfuge. I didn't feel like I had any choice, realistically speaking. Motoyasu wouldn't even _look_ at me, and that horrendous bitch was always wispering in his ear. There was no way he'd listen to me, and certainly no way he'd help me out. Maybe the others were different (or more sensible) but things had went so poorly for me in this world that I wasn't inclined to risk a sure thing on playing nice. It did worry me a little, however, that I might be giving a bad impression to my new partner.

Shoving my thoughts aside, i pushed out of the tent and greeted my new Sword, Gyousou Saku.

"Sleep well lad?" he asked me curiously. 

So it seemed he hadn't figured out my secret yet, that was good. H didn't seem the sort who would rough a girl up, but one could never tell by appearances and I'd just as soon that it never became an issue. Hopefully, as long as he thought I was just an exceptionally short girl, it just wouldn't come up and we'd both be spared the uncomfortable feeling of "young girl traveling with an older man" while we traveled together.

"I did, thanks," I said. "How about you? Where'd you get the fish? We don't have a fishing pole."

"It's easy enough to spear some if you know what you're doing," he said. "When I was in military academy, we had to lean how to live off the land."

"Well I'm glad one of us can," I said. "I'm only good for fighting."

I decided that I was going to leave my assassins training out of things for now. He handed me my fish and I tried not to scarf it down like a starving person.

"You were a soldier?" I asked him, a number of impression's I'd gotten from him in our breif acquaintence were coming to make a lot more sense.

He'd really struck me as knowing how to use a sword well. I had some training, but even to my untutored eyes, Gyousou was the sort of man who _breathed_ swordplay. He also knew how to take orders, and how to give them, and he valued the efforts of the team over individual glory. All traits I'd come to know as belonging to a fine soldier.

"A general," he said shortly.

"Really? Which kingdom, maybe I've been there," I said.

And maybe his guards had hounded me from one border to another.

"Tai," he replied. 

I consulted my mental map of the 12 kingdoms, trying to place it. I had a hazy idea of like, _five_ of them. I knew Kou, I knew En, I knew Kei, and I knew Han, and I knew about the island in the center where all the kirin came from. 

"Nope, sorry, I don't recognize it," I said. "Is it down south?"

He chuckled and drew out a basic picture of the layout of the 12 kingdoms, pointing out En in the northeast.

"This is En," he said.

"I've been there," I replied, pleased that I had _some_ knowledge.

"Tai is here," he added, pointing up to the triangle across from En, waaaay up in the north.

"Geeze!" I exclaimed. "It must really get cold!"

"Oh yes," he agreed wistfully. "Winter lies like an implacable blanket for many of the moths out of the year, and mountains howl with winter winds so frigid that even the youma will not venture forth from their lairs."

"So how'd you get _here_?" I asked. "You obviously weren't dragged away from your hearthfire to play Hero by some selfish king and his stupid priests..."

"It sounds like you are less than pleased with your exalted position," he noted dryly. "But that spear-wielding young man from the night before seems quite pleased with his own luck in being chosen as a Hero of this land."

 _Yeah_ he had. Motoyasu had nattered on for _hours_ about his good fortune, and how much the king was going to pay him, and how everyone bowed and scraped to him and called him "mi'lord." 

"Little punk really eats it up," I scowled at the embers of the fire. "I guess he's just a lucky guy that that that bit-um"

I caught myself as Gyousou seemed like the type who would tell me to watch my language, and I didn't want to make an even worse impression on him. It was strange, most soldiers I knew could turn the air blue, but my new Sword struck me as being very straitlaced and I wanted to try to get on his good side. Not because I cared about him mind you, or cared what he thought of me, but I was tired of being blindsided and I didn't want to be stabbed in the back again.

"How nice for him that that that horrendous cow, Mein, seems to _like_ him so much."

"You spent half the night glaring at one of his companions like she was your mortal enemy and that if you'd had a way to attack her, she would not have been long for this life."

"It's..." I huffed a sigh as my temper seethed from the reminder. 

Oh I _had_ wanted to kill her. The old man was right. If I'd had a way to do it, that bitch wouldn't be breathing. Too bad I was the _Shield_ Hero and not the Sword Hero, everyone _knew_ I couldn't fight back. Still, if I ever managed to catch her without any witnesses, I'd kill her with my bare hands.

"I'd rather not talk about it," I said instead. "We were talking about _you,_ anyway. How'd you get here in this world?"

"I'd rather not talk about it," he replied dryly.

I nodded, understanding. It was fine with me if he wanted his secrets.

"So. What next?" he asked. "Your face looks so glum that I take it you learned nothing of use to you from your covert operation yesterday?"

"Nothing immediately useful anyway," I said. "Time will tell whether or not it will become useful in the future. We're headed south to find Ren Amaki, the Sword hero."

"More covert information gathering?" he questioned. "To what end? If the information you learned from the young Spear Hero is of no use to you, what makes you think the Sword will be any different?"

"I don't know. All I do know is that I cannot seem to get my Shield to level properly as i lack any offensive capabilities, and I can only hope that whatever I am able to glean from the others might help me figure out what it is that I'm doing wrong in my own work."

"And you can't just ask?" he pressed.

"I told you before, as far as they're concerned I'm an untrustworthy criminal. If I go up to them and ask plainly they'll tell me no, I just know it. Worse I'll have tipped my hand and they'll be on thier guard against any further attempt I make to gain information in other ways. Covert intelligence is the safest way, and the only sure bet I have."

My new partner didn't look like he approved, but said nothing further, only helped my break down camp and move on our way to find my next quarry. I was loosing valuable leveling time tracking down the other heroes, despite all of the slaying I was doing along the way. I could only hope it would pay off in the end.

Gyousou and I worked our way south to locate Ren Amaki, killing various sorts of animals along the way and stuffing the drops that I did not feed directly to my shield into my pack to hopefully sell later. I unlocked several new shields that offered me minor stat bonuses, and I wondered again why, if Motoyasu's weapon and mine both clearly had a stat bonus system, did his have the power to upgrade it and mine didn't. Was it because I didn't have any ores? Or because I lacked catalysts?

 _:Maybe the option open up when a soul ore is used, and mine just hasn't because no-one told me about the soul ore,:_ I thought optimistically.

If that was so, then all I needed to do was get a hold of one of those soul ores somewhere and try it out. In that case, maybe my information gathering hadn't been a loss after all. I questioned, however, whether I should try pursuing the knowledge o the other two, or if I should just try to find a soul ore.

 _:Nah, I'll go after them,:_ I decided. : _If the info from Motoyasu doesn't pan out, it could be that the info I gain from the other two will, and if I miss out on my chance of getting it now, they'll have spread out so far on their own leveling up journeys that I'll miss entirely and be unable to catch up and gather the information I might need.:_

Thus we continued father south and east that day, fighting monsters as we went. We had stopped for lunch when something else Motoyasu had said suddenly caught up to me. I had stuffed it in the back of my brain, thinking, 'well yes of course it's only natural that there would be _that_...' and I just realized that I, myself, had not encountered any such thing.

All of the monsters I'd killed so far all had common monster drops like you would naturally expect to see from wild monster creatures, things like shells and claws and demons eyes and fangs and such, but... I had so far not run across anything I would have expected if I were playing a _video game_. Item drops. I hadn't seen any drops like potions or coins or common weapons or recipes or any of those things. I'd been treating this world like it was a real world, and in a real world having a monster drop coins or items just didn't make sense, but Motoyasu apparently received item drops along with his monster drops. I wanted item drops too!

"You look like you're pouting about something," Gyousou noted as we walked along.

"I feel cheated," I mumbled. 

I tried to explain to him about video games, but he gave me this terribly perplexed look for a long time, and it grew even more puzzled the more I tried to explain it. Likely his only exposure to games were games like shogi or go, which were certainly nothing like the slightly odd innovations for tabletop role playing games (the basis for video games) we'd developed on my world.

Moving south and east through the woods all that day I unlocked five new shields and we raised our levels up to level four. It was a bit slow going but I couldn't find it in me to complain about something so small when I had so many other, bigger concerns to worry about.

* * *

After breaking camp for the morning we arrived in the southern forest where I figured that the Sword Hero was likely to be. I kept my stealth shield up, and kept pinging Eagle Eye every few feet, hoping to chance across him. Because of the stealth mode in my shield, we didn't encounter any monsters while I was searching for Ren. My shield's ping range, however, did seem to increase the more I used it, which was interesting. After a few hours of searching I began to wonder if I'd missed him completely, when my Shield at last gave a ping, Highlighting my quarry in yellow.

"There he is!" I hissed excitedly to my companion.

We snuck quietly through the underbrush under Stealth using my Stealth Sheild and observed him for a moment before discussing how best to go about getting the information i wanted to know.

I paused to admire Ren's form as he charged a small knot of egg-shaped youma. He efficiently took them out with a clean sweep of his sword, not wasting any movement. Over nearby (but oddly, _not_ working along side him like I would have had my own party do if I were leading them) his companion-adventurers who had signed on to fight alongside him were working all on their own mobs instead of helping him with his. It was strange. They were all going after their own kills separately. Could you really call this teamwork? I shrugged to myself, I supposed that it was fine if it got the job done, but single-combat wouldn't do them a whole lot of good for the Wave of Calamity I would bet. If it was a large boss fight, they would be screwed if they didn't have their teamwork sorted by then.

_:Ren seems like a pretty smart fellow, surely he's just grinding through the low levels before he starts in on the upper level stuff. Once they reach a higher level on their own, he'll probably start training them on proper teamwork then. Yeah, actually that makes a lot of sense, for the solitary type like he is to go about things that way.:_

"Unlike Motoyasu," I said, quietly to Gyousou before we approached him. "Amaki isn't the type to drop his guard for a pretty face, so we'll have to approach him differently. He likes the respect of the people around him. He's one of those cool, know-it-all types."

I suppressed a pang at the irony, because on occasion that same phrase could be used to describe myself as well. Youko had certainly called me on it anyway.

"We'll follow them for a while to keep them in sight," I strategized. "When they camp for the night, I want you to go up to his camp, maybe bring some fish as a gift, and say that you wanted to meet the legendary Sword Hero."

"You want me to flatter and fawn over a _child_ who has not a _fraction_ of my years?!" Gyousou growled back incredulously, scowling deeply at me in offense.

"Well, you don't need to lay it on _thick_ ," I said. "Just get him talking about how he levels his weapon up. Work your way around to inquiring about how his Legendary Weapon works. You could say you're a connoisseur of some sort and you were wondering how it compares."

He huffed an unhappy sigh and glared fiercely at me.

"I _dislike_ subterfuge," he stated baldly.

"I can't approach him myself," I said. "He thinks I'm a criminal and he won't talk to me. I _need_ this information if I'm going to level up with my Shield. _Please_ do this for me?"

He paused for a long moment, looking at my pleading face, which I was just desperate enough to use. He then heaved a small, unhappy sigh.

"Only this once," he said in admonishment.

"Great!" I smiled at him. "Thanks. I'll find some other way to approach the Bow Hero."

The bow-kid seemed to have a bit of a thing for Robin Hood, or at least that was how it appeared, so there was a chance that if I went to him with my story, he might actually hear me out long enough to get him to learn the truth. After all, wasn't Robin Hood falsely accused of crimes by Prince John?

 _:Huh... I hadn't thought of that before,:_ I thought in small amusement as Gyousou approached Ren's campsite. _:I wonder if that actually makes me something like Robin Hood. I hope not. It seems kind of ridiculous and I don't want people mistaking me for some kind of charity outfit.:_

My Stealth Shield made me able to listen in on the conversation Gyousou started with Ren when he approached him. The ex-general from Tai started by complimenting the Sword Hero on his form and offering some useful advice to refine his technique just as a way of establishing his own credentials. To Ren's credit, he didn't trust the stranger walking into his camp out of hand, he questioned him about various things, and to my surprise, ren challenged him to a short one-tap duel to verify his story.

 _:How could a kid so skeptical have been taken in so easily?:_ I wondered.

After the short duel (one that Gyousou won easily, I noticed) my new partner was welcomed a bit more warmly into Amaki's camp. The conversation then fell quickly to Ren's Legendary Weapon, and Gyousou took the opportunity to inquire as to how he made his sword stronger.

_:Finally! It looks like he's going to get to it!:_

"For my Sword, everything really come's down to two things; a weapon's rarity and my Mastery-level with it," Ren explained. "The rarer the sword is, the better it's stats and abilities and the more useful it becomes. The key to getting a mediocre sword to become a useful sword is by increasing my proficiency with it which in turn increases my mastery-level. The longer I use a particular sword in battle, the higher it's Mastery-level becomes as I fill up it's Proficiency Gauge. Once I max out its Mastery, I can reset the weapon's Proficiency to zero using my conversion menu. I can convert all of it's proficiency into Proficiency Points. I can then use that stored energy to increase a sword's Rarity. By improving a sword from a Common to an Uncommon to a Rare to an Epic and so on, not only do it's base stats increase but I can unlock new skills and abilities sealed away in the higher tiers. Also, I can feed drops from my kills to force-feed my Proficiency Gauge if I don't want to level up the sword the tedious way. The more powerful the monster I kill, the more points of Proficiency a drop from it will buy me."

Gyousou said that the system sounded both confusing and fascinating. They exchanged more words about sword techniques and Ren showed him the many different types of swords he had gained by using Weapon Copy and my brow furrowed in puzzlement. How is it that both Motoyasu and Ren had Weapon Copy and I didn't?

 _:Hmm,:_ I mused, puzzling over it. :It does seem a little bit odd that this is so. It can't be just because my weapon is centered around defense and theirs are offensive weapons. That doesn't make a whole lot of sense.:

My mind then flickered back to the day I had washed myself in the stream and begged my Shield for an mp3 player so I could listen to my music. I recalled the way I had almost _willed_ it into being, and my Shield had acted strangely for a bit. Could it be... was it possible that the reason these Shields all acted differently but still had weapon copy in common and mine didn't was not because the gods of this world decreed it, but because we ourselves thought that it was the way things should be?

:That seems a little backwards, and last night I still didn't see anything like what Motoyasu was talking about...:

I felt doubtful about it, but honestly I didn't have any other theories to work with right then.

After a little while Gyousou bid Ren goodbye, thanking him for the honor of meeting the Sword Hero and his comrades, and Ren said that if he ever desired to join a party, he was welcome to join his.

"He seems like a nice kid," Gyousou said when we walked off to another part of the forest to make our own camp. 

"He does," I agreed cautiously. 

"You should tell him the truth about you, he might listen."

"I doubt it," I said flatly. "Anyway, it doesn't matter."

I didn't want to open myself up to rejection again. If they couldn't stay their judgement and listen when it was important, it didn't matter how nice a kid he was, he didn't deserve my time or thoughts. 

As we turned in that night, I tried looking through the Help Menu and searching around my screens, but I didn't see _anything_ that resembled the proficiency Guage or any of the other functions Ren had talked about. Maybe every weapon worked differently but if that was so, then why did his and Motoyasu's both seem to have a Weapon Copy ability in common? Something just wasn't adding up....

 _:Maybe I'll find the answer I need when I track down Itsuki and make him tell me about his Bow._ : I thought hopefully. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone who wants to read it, there will be a new chapter of the Convenient Queen posted later on this evening. I hope you all enjoy!


	13. Faffing About In Lute Village, Trying to Get Somewhere

We spent the next day turning westward and slightly to the north, fighting our way through forests and fields full of monsters. I unsealed a few more new shields from a few of the new kinds monsters that we fought. They were generic shields from generic mobs, but at least it was something. We paused to rest in a field when the sun climbed to its highest point in the sky. After cooling off with a refreshing drink from a nearby stream, we consulted the map to get our bearings and keep on course to intercept the Bow Hero.

"There's a small mining village nearby," I remarked, looking at the map.

I couldn't actually read the words on it since I still lacked the ability to read the writing of this world but there was a pick-shaped icon over the symbol for town so I felt pretty confident in my statement.

"It's probably a pretty safe bet that the Bow Hero would have decided to settle there for a night or two."

I looked at our travel packs with the dwindling supplies. I had been leveling up my culinary skill with the Blue Egg Shield to stretch out our meager supplies as much as possible but we honestly needed to restock our staple-supplies or I wasn't going to have anything to cook with, you could only cook meat so many ways after all, and monster flesh had a weird under-taste to it unless it was prepared carefully. 

"We could also stand to restock some of our own supplies," I admitted. "And while we're there I wanted to look into a few more things."

"Such as?" he asked.

"I can't read the writing of this world," I admitted. "Being the Hero of the Shield grants me a babelfish for spoken words, but I learned that it doesn't cover anything written down. I'd purchased some books on magic earlier, and alchemy and other things, but found out afterwards that they were useless to me."

"I had wondered why your pack was so heavy," Gyousou remarked. "Why carry them around if they are useless to you?"

"All I have to do is learn to read," I replied. "Then I can benefit from my investment. I'd hate to have wasted the money, besides... who doesn't want to learn magic?"

Magic, I was hoping, was going to be the workaround for my lack of ability to hold another weapon. Even if I was just a healer or buffer, It would still be _something_ , and some enemies were weak to healing magic sometimes. In Final Fantasy the zombie and undead types of enemies were always weak to healing magic and potions.

Gyousou looked rather sharply at me and said

"You know, for someone who holds the title of a great hero, you seem to be remarkably ignorant about a number of things."

I scowled darkly, though not at him.

"I'm _working_ on it," I said, my tone gruff to disguise how much being betrayed and outcast still hurt me. "That's why we have to find the Bow Hero. I need to gain more information."

"Why not go to the preisthood to learn magic?" he inquired logically.

"Tried that," I said. "They threw me out. Seems they'd rather not sully their precious church with the likes of me. So much for offering succor to those in need. Not that I need them. I can find a way to figure things out on my own, I just need a starting point that's all."

I sounded pretty bitter even to myself. It felt really unfair that I was the only one with so many unnecessary challenges thrown in my path. When I saw how easy things were for the other summoned heroes it made me feel very bitter and resentful of my own bad experiences. All because one stupid girl with too much influence over those in authority mysteriously decided she was going to accuse me of rape. What a joke.

_:Nah, things aren't fair no matter **what** world you're on.:_

We packed up the remains of our lunch and continued on towards the town, killing whatever irritating monsters happened across our paths along the way. Curious about what Ren had said, I decided to test out his method, chances were pretty good that he'd simply unlocked his method by knowing about it, and now that I knew about it, it stood to reason that it would unlock for me. 

_:No harm in trying it out,:_ I thought to myself. _:I'd feel pretty stupid if I lost out on an advantage just because I wouldn't try.:_

The next monster to cross our path was an Orange Bouncy, which was a slightly larger and tougher version of the Orange Balloon that I had faced on my first day. I switched to the Orange Shield and slammed into the monsters front to get its attention while Gyousou moved around to attack it from its flank. 

_: **That's** interesting,:_ I noticed right away. 

Bouncies and balloons were naturally aggressive. Their attention became harder to keep focused on me when Gyousou started to attack them and really hurt them, if he got any more than two hits on them without me continuously slapping my shield at them from the front then they generally disregarded any attempt by me to keep their attention and went to attack him instead. When I switched to the Orange Shield against them however, the Bouncy focused sharply on me as though it wasn't able to look away. It's eyes glowed bright red and the jewel in my shield shone more brightly. Gyousou attacked from the side... one hit, two hit, three hits, and the monster's eyes faded from red to orange. Then, when Gyousou poked it with another stab of his sword, the creature's eyes changed from orange to yellow and it began to look away from me and turn toward him. Intuitively I slammed it in the face again and it's eyes turned red (as did the jewel in my shield) and its attention snapped back to me. Another two hits and the remarkably resilient Bouncy died.

Upon it's death I immediately received a pop-up window that said

**Job Skill Unlocked!**   
**Ability: Taunt**  
 **Creature: Air Demon**

_:That must have done it!:_ I thought triumphantly, feeling gleeful. _:I'd always wondered why my shield didn't seem to have an aggro gauge, hate meter or any other measuring system so that I could keep and eye on my enemy's aggro. If I'm going to do my job, I need to keep its attention focused on me so that I could tank properly like a **proper** tank. Now I know, I have to use the right shield for the job, at least the first time.:  
_

Things were falling into place now and I felt _no doubt_ in my mind that when I went to my Shield Menu that I would be able to find the level-resetting power Amaki had talked about, now that I'd unlocked the ability to tank properly.

_:That must have been what I was missing!:_ I thought feeling a bit euphoric. _:Now I can start to level up my Legendary Weapon like the others!:_

I could hardly wait to access my menu so that I could start experimenting with improving my shield, but I knew it would have to wait until we were safely in town and settled for the night. It would be stupid to try it now seeing as the field was still dangerous and having a tank who was distracted fiddling around with their Character Screen was just a death sentence waiting to happen. I'd waited this long, I could wait a little while longer. 

"Hey, Gyousou," I said looking over at him. "If you spot any monster before I do, call over what sort of monster it is so that I can switch to the right shield for maintaining aggro."

He looked perplexed but shrugged and nodded his head. We proceeded on our journey toward the small mining village called Lute Village, which lay at the edge of a forest an hours walk away from a steep cliff with a cave in it that had a mining cart and track coming out of it. The mine showed no signs of activity, and I wondered if it had been abandoned. The village itself was picturesque, with the plaster-and-wood houses all thatched with straw that gleamed like gold in the light of the westering sun. The road topped a rise looking out onto the village which was protected by a sensible palisade wall of pine logs stripped of branches with the tops sharpened to spikes. 

"Quite defensible," Gyousou said with an obvious note of approval in his voice.

Two of the village locals were making repairs to one of the towers beside the gateway to the city and they paused in their work to watch us approach. 

"Pardon us," I called over politely.

Manners cost nothing after all, and if the world was set against you anyway there was no reason not to attempt to make a good impression on someone who didn't seem to know your bad reputation.

"Good deey tae ye, lads!" one of the men repairing the gate called in a thick accent I couldn't quite place. It must be that worlds equivalent to a thick country accent. "Whut kin a dae ye?"

"Would you happen to know where we can find an inn, and if you have a bath-house in this village?"

I wouldn't mind sleeping in a bed, provided there wouldn't be lice sleeping with me. I really, _really_ wanted a bath! A proper bath and not just a wash-up in a frigid stream.

"The Pick and Pony's the first building on your right," one of the lads said. "The bath-house is set up right next to it. Men's hours are after sunset to first moon rising. Women an' kids have it till sunset. It's twelve copper for a wash, twenty-three coppers for a wash and launder."

"I see, thanks," I said with a grateful nod in his direction. 

When the gates opened up for us, it revealed a snug little fortified village laid out mostly along a central strip as seen in the spaghetti westerns on my world. There was a large, two-storied inn with a tavern on the main floor, obvious stabling on the right side and the promised bath-house nestled closely on its left. A single covered well occupied the main courtyard and chickens clucked and ran around freely. Likely there was also a pig-pen and smokehouse in the back, I could smell the smoke. Across the street from the tidy-looking in was a blacksmith shop made entirely out of stone, there was even slate for the ceiling, a sensible precaution when one worked with fire, a wooden house would be a death-trap. The ringing _ting-ting-ting_ of metal being worked on an anvil sounded through the air. Next door to the blacksmith shop was a wagoners, and next to that was a saddlery. There were a small handful of stores occupying the rest of the main strip including a general goods store and next to that was a small magic, alchemy and herbalist shop rolled in one, and a shop that looked like it specialized in tools and weaponry but leaned more toward tools.

"Nice little place," I noted. "It looks more prosperous than I was expecting. More stores anyway. They must see a lot in the way of trade I suppose. My map doesn't show what's beyond the cliff that leads down to that plain in the distance so for all I know this village could be on the route to a much larger settlement farther north."

"Makes sense, especially as there is a wagoners there," Gyousou agreed. "Shall we go and find your little friend, then?"

"He's not my friend," I said.

After all, he had been just as quick to accuse me as everyone else was. So much for his sense of justice.

"Then it seems as though you will be practicing your usual subterfuge," he said disapprovingly.

"I told you already, I can't approach them openly. They won't give give me the time of day, much less believe me!" I snapped, nettled.

"Perhaps you give them too little credit," he pressed. "That young sword-lad seemed honest enough, you could probably have approached him openly instead of relying on deceit. Why not try it?"

I weighed my options carefully. On the one hand, I _knew_ that my underhanded tactics worked. I got the information I needed, and just today it had been shown to me that the information I had gleaned had merit. If I tried to meet with Itsuki openly to ask him for what I wanted and he turned me away, it was entirely likely I would spook my quarry and loose the element of surprise I needed in order to pull the information I out of him without his being aware of it. 

_:Or maybe I'm just afraid of being rejected again,:_ I acknowledged. 

It seemed like a gamble, _and_ an unnecessary risk. I _knew_ sneaky tactics _worked_. Reaching out asking for information like a beggar entreating scraps just rubbed me up the wrong way. I didn't want to. Maybe part of my hesitation stemmed from not wanting to be rejected again, but I also did not want to risk a sure bet for nothing of equal value that I could perceive. Then again... I might gain an ally. That could potentially be useful. In addition, I had my new partners sensibilities to think of. I wanted him to feel like he'd made the right choice in throwing in with me. Pushing too many questionable practices on him all at once might cause him to second-guess his choice and I wanted him to feel confident about me.

"Very well," I said, still reluctant. "I owe you this much I suppose. We'll try it your way."

_:Part of me still thinks I should do it my way. I hate the thought of putting a sure thing at risk on a gamble that maybe I can get someone to listen and like me. Given my abysmal luck so far, it doesn't seem like a wise or safe choice.:_

We walked down the slightly muddy street and into the local inn. We sat at a long bench fastened to the bar, our travel packs at our feet and got the attention of the portly fellow manning the bar.

"Have you by any chance seen a kid, blond hair, green eyes, has some sort f bow on him, traveling with a mage and warrior and a knife-weilding fellow?" I asked, laying a handful of coppers on the bar.

"I might have done," the barkeep said, rubbing his fingertips and thumbtips together in a symbol universally understood across universes. 

I slid another five coppers out of my purse. He cleared his throat and I glared and pulled out another ten coppers.

"He came through town yesterday morning, resupplied, and then left. Didn't stay long," the barkeep informed us.

"He say where he was going?" I asked.

Greedy barkeep gave the money sign again. I gave him a flat look and slapped another three coppers on the table. Bastard smirked at me.

"There's a mark on the huntlist, supposed to be making trouble for the miners," he said. "After they clear that nasty from the mines, they made plans to move on to the plain northward, supposedly a nue is making a stink up in the mountains north of the plains and there's sure to be plenty of baddies to hunt before the hourglass runs out."

"Hm," I grunted debating. 

The sun was westering but there was still plenty of daylight left. I should probably have time to catch him at the mines. He'd either listen to me or he wouldn't.

"What's this about a huntlist?" I asked curiously.

The barkeep gestured over to a tall, wide cork board that dominated the wall of one side of the tavern.

_:Oh for crying out loud!:_ I thought in irritation and exasperation, mostly at myself. 

Of _course_ there was a mission board. Of all the damn things.

"Thanks," I said gruffly, slapping another copper on the counter as a gratuity.

Good info was good info after all, even if he hadn't exactly volunteered it. 

I left Gyousou at the bar with our bags and an ale while I went to have a look a the opportunities on the board I'd been missing out on. There were a large number of menial tasks, the usual 'go find my dog' or 'fetch some supplies across town for me' a few missions offering rewards for escorting a traveler or two to a distant destination, and there was more than one posting for the mines. It seemed that poor Lute Mines was overrun with nasties of one stripe or another. 

"Cerberus, the Black Wolf Fiend, huh?" I said, spying a particularly nasty one with a correspondingly nice monetary reward attached. "That sounds promising. See Tomin for details, found at the Pick and Pony..."

I looked around, switching to my Stealth Shield and pinging with my Hawkeye. My target lit up gold and I switched back to an ordinary looking buckler before I approached him. After all, if we were going to the mines anyway, there was really no point in _not_ killing two birds with one stone. We needed more money to resupply with, and a rare monster would probably unlock an interesting shield. But mostly... _money_.

"You posted this notice about a beast in the mines that needs slaying?" I asked as I approached my target.

He was short, bearded and utterly inebriated. 

_:He looks like he could be Snow White's Seven Dwarves lesser known cousin, Drunky!:_

"What? Eh?" the half-drunken idle miner said, raising his head from where it rested on the table. "Oh, right, the dog. Yeah, I posted it. It's keeping me from my work an' the wife's after naggin' me about hungry mouths an' all that. Tha's why I'm here in the middle o' th' day. Can't stand her constant carping on me. If you'd kill it, I could go back ta' work an' she could get off my back."

"Sound's good, but let's see this payment of yours."

I wanted to make certain that Drunky the Dwarf here wasn't going to stiff me out of my reward when I came back from killing the beast.

"It's safe with the barkeep," he slurred. "They all said that if they left it ta me I'd drink it away and we'd never git rid o' th' beast."

"Fair enough," I nodded privately relieved that there was a responsible adult involved. 

I walked back to my swordsman at the bar with his beer and showed him the notice.

"So what do you think?" I asked after he'd had time to peruse it. "If we hurry we might be able to make it out to the mine and catch Bow-kun as well as clear out a few enemies and maybe unseal a new shield."

He gave me a slightly reproving look.

"It would make more sense to conduct our business now, wait until the Bow-Hero arrives back here in town and discuss your difficulties and try to win him over then."

"I want to hunt this beast," I said. "Everyone else has gotten to take on one of these marks by now, I want one too."

"Do you even have a lantern?" he questioned a bit archly.

I paused, considered and acceded defeat. As much as I wanted to take down the terror of the mines, I wanted to be lost in the dark that much less.

"I see that it is more sensible to do things that way, but... what if he kills it before I can make it there?"

"Then the beast will _still_ be slain, you'll _not_ have gotten lost in the mines in the dark, and we shall likely be at exactly the same place we are now in but a few hours time," he said logically. "Besides... did you not wish a bath?"

_:Oh right, I do want one. Sounds like a much better idea than... wait a minute..._

He was getting me to do exactly what he wanted anyway.

"I see what you're doing," I informed him. 

" _Do_ you, now..."

"Yes. And I just want you to know.... it's working, well done," I said wryly.

He shook his head, smiling a bit, and passed me an ale. It was nutty with that alcohol under-taste, but drinking the water wasn't always safe so I had grown accustomed, in my travels, to consuming the liquid bread diet common in this world. With all of the fighting I would be doing the extra calories weren't going to stick around. We ordered a meal from the kitchen, a meat-soup that was too thin to be called stew though they tried anyway. The bread was coarse but filling, and the butter... there really was nothing like freshly churned butter. After the meal I ordered a two-bed room and inquired about a dividing screen and was assured that such limited privacy did exist. 

I think the inn-keep might have thought that I was Gyousou's "pretty young boy" or something weird like that, but then again, I had read that such a scenario wasn't entirely unusual, especially in less advanced worlds. Even in the world of the Twelve Kingdoms, travelers had shared accommodations, even slept in the same beds with perfect strangers, and no-one had thought anything of it, so I put it out of my mind. Gyousou said that he would lock our supplies in our room and then see about acquiring some of the supplies on our list. I went directly to the bath-house to have my first good bath in far too long.

The bath-house was mostly empty. It looked like all of the women who wished to wash had already done so, and they were preparing to change over to the men's time in an hour. That didn't give me long. I shield-changed my shield down to the innocuous bracer-sized shield and entered the bath-house, letting the soap-scented steam wash over me.

"Excuse me young man," the bath attendant, a proper looking miss a little older than me, said. "The time allotted for males to bathe is not for another hour, please wait your turn properly."

I turned and looked over at her, then with a sheepish smile loosened my belt and pulled up my shirt to display my smallish breasts, still held somewhat flat by my sports bra, to confirm my biological designation as female. 

"It's not a problem for me," I said politely. "But thank you for being so cautious. I know I'm in good hands."

"Oh, my apologies!" the miss said, turning red.

"No, it's not your fault, I do it this way on purpose. Sometimes certain sorts of people get funny ideas if they know you're a woman," I replied. "Could I please have my clothes laundered while I wash? They badly need it."

"Certainly," she affirmed, handing me a basket woven with red-dyed straw for me to put my clothes in.

I eagerly told over the coin and just as eagerly stripped down to nothing, barely restraining myself to a walk after I'd taken my bucket of wash-things over to the large jars and dippers of heated water. I rinsed down and scrubbed myself clean, then rinsed and scrubbed again, even using some soap on my hair even though it made my short hair dry and brittle. Right then my dark hair was greasy enough to stand on its own. After a paranoid third thorough washing, I finally walked carefully over the wet tile to the large, hot, soaking-tub in the main room and settled down into the luxuriously hot water with an exultant sigh.

_:Ah... bliss,:_ I thought happily.

"Maybe I'll just stay _here_ for the Calamity," I muttered to myself. "Let the glory-hound _boys_ fight it out if they want to. After all, no-one asked _me_ if I wanted to save anyone, they just summoned me here without a by your leave, and they've treated me terribly. I owe them nothing. Well, nothing, I suppose, except for the silvers they gave to me for war-funds... but on the other hand, that money wouldn't even have been necessary if I were still home, on my comfy couch, drinking tea and playing video games."

My thoughts were souring my bath and I really wanted to enjoy it. I'd been sleeping on the ground and eating whatever I could find and prepare for days now. I'd spent the last few days sweaty and dirty from fighting monsters and people treated me like a criminal.

_:All except for the Gyousou guy, from Tai, it's clear he knows about other worlds. He wasn't summoned here to fight monsters, and he did say he has other business back in his home-world, I wonder what his deal is?:_ I mused to myself. _:I suppose I could ask him, but I'm not sure about letting him in too close. If he's right and we're only destined to be temporary partners then there's no point in getting attached. At least he believed me, or seemed to, when I told him I was innocent. It must have seemed pretty incriminating when all I do is sneak around and pick locks. I suppose there wouldn't be any harm in telling him about me, he doesn't seem like he'd get any weird ideas just because I'm a girl.:_

I shelved the notion for later. I probably would tell him eventually, but I just needed to be more certain of him than I was right then. I finished my bath and collected my laundered clothing from the bath-house attendant, donning it in a private alcove just as they announced the change from women's to men's hours. I nearly ran into Gyousou on my way out and he caught my arm.

"I had been looking for you," he said.

"Oh, sorry," I apologized. "You said you needed to do some shopping so I took the chance to get cleaned up. The water's nice, have a good bath. I have some errands of my own to run before the stores all close up for the night."

"Be careful, a merchant's caravan from the north just settled into the inn courtyard. The merchant's likely won't be any trouble for anyone, but where there are caravans there are caravan _guards_ and sell-swords _are_ likely to cause trouble. I'd guard my purse and my tongue if I were you, they'll likely be drunk and looking for a fight, some of them."

"Thanks for the head's up," I said. "I'll keep an eye out."

Gyousou continued on in to enjoy his own bath and I headed out to check a few items off from my list. I would ask around to see about this "soul ore" that Motoyasu claimed was used to level up his own Legendary Weapon. It was a mining town after all, chances were pretty good that they'd heard of it at least.

_:But first, the magic shop,:_ I decided. 

I figured it would do better to catch the mage at the end of the day before he went home with the request for reading lessons, rather than try in the morning. If I was there early in the day my request might mean a loss of potential custom to him, whereas now it might only mean I'd have to bribe him into putting off returning to his home for the evening. The magic shop was just about to close up and I was "that customer" who came at the very end of the day with weird requests. Still, the old man seemed willing enough to humor me when I laid out a palmful of silver. 

"Are you certain you wouldn't rather just buy a spell crystal?" he asked, sounding exasperated with my weird request.

"What's a spell crystal?" I asked curiously.

"One of our best commodities," he assured me. "It sounds like it would be perfect to suit your needs. It is the essence of a magic spell housed within a core of crystal and activated at need."

So, basically like a magic scroll in other games. On the surface it sounded perfect. I could just use magic scrolls instead of having to go to enormous amounts of trouble to learn to read a language that, provided I ever made it back home, I was never going to need to know again. Still... there was always a downside. 

_:And I'm pretty sure I'll need to know how to read sooner or later anyway. I have those other books I bought to read as well. The crystal would be far more convenient in one way, but....:_

"What's the difference between a spell-crystal, and a spell you learn yourself?" I asked.

"Well," he said a little bit reluctantly. "While our spell crystals are the finest you'll find in five hundred miles, they are only of use once and then they are gone."

He hesitated. I waited, looking at him pointedly and letting him see that I knew there was more.

"A spell crystal also, by it's nature," he said. "Can only store magical power or spells up to a certain power-threshold."

In essence the spell crystals would only hold spells that did a limited amount of damage, where as, theoretically, with practice a person may learn and grow more proficient with a cast spell that they learned out of a book, potentially increasing it's damage output beyond what could be achieved by a spell stored in a spell crystal. So, essentially, I could cheat and gain what I want in the short term, or I could play the long game and reap greater rewards later on. This was my choice.

_:I don't really want to be here for the long game though,:_ I thought to myself. _:I was hoping that they might find a way to just send me home, since none of them seem to like me or want me around. I doesn't look like things are going to be that easy, however.:_

The easy option for the ready-made spell crystal was dreadfully tempting simply because it was easy. I shook my head firmly in resolution however.

_:Remember what happened the **last** time you took the easy way Yuka? You wound up accepting a hanma into you for the easy way of learning the language and wound up as the pet assassin to a crazy king, and nearly killed Youko to boot.: I demanded of myself. :You promised yourself not to ever take the easy way again just because it's easy. There's really only one choice here. Besides... magic! Who in their right minds wouldn't ump at the chance to learn magic?:_

I indicated to the store owner that I wanted to learn to read the contents of the spell books and set about haggling for the lessons I desired. He gave in, but only after I'd bought more books and materials from him than I was reasonably going to use right away. I think he had them lying around in the back and just needed to offload them onto someone desperate enough to take them. Suddenly, as I was resting one of the books to balance on my Shield, the jewel pinged at me, vibrating like a cellphone. Surprised, I experimentally brought one of the books I was carrying and pressed it against the green jewel in my shield. The shield vibrated, then morphed its shape, turning into a giant leather tome, sort of like one of those very fancy leather-bound journals. A screen popped up on front of me that said

**Sheild Unlocked!**   
**Book Binder Shield+1: Common 1/20**   
**Ability: Book Copy**   
**Mastery Lvl: 1/20**   
**Equip Bonus: Learning +.01%  
**

:Book copy huh,: I thought. I wonder it it works like weapon copy.:

Another thought occurred to me. If I could essentially xerox and store books in my shield's internal memory, then I would not need to carry around all of those heavy books in my back-pack! I was definitely trying this ability! I pulled out one of the book's I'd bought at random, the alchemy text as it turned out, and laid it out on my shield. There was a small flash of light and a pop-up window asked

**Copy Book? Y/N**

I immediately confirmed it, and a small window with a progress bar on it minimized to the side of my vision. The bar filled up incredibly slowly! It was like waiting for a song to download int he mid-nineties like I'd seen on TV. If it were any slower, you'd hear dial-up tones sounding. Still, it wasn't like I had anywhere else I needed to be, and I could just look around the store while I waited for my book to finish downloading.

I was passing through the shop to the back where I would take my reading lessons when my shield suddenly notified me with a buzzing vibration and a soft chime, like a cell phone. I looked over at the shelf next to me to see that it was filled with that ancient and universal symbol of the apothecary and herbalist, the mortar and pestle. 

"Hey shopkeep," I said, walking closer and picking up the simplest and cheapest one, carved out of stone, smoothed until the surface was shiny like glass. "How much for one of these?"

"Twenty coppers," he said.

I snorted. Nope.

"Got any that are second hand you don't want to sell to customers?" I asked next.

After all, I would only be feeding it to my shield, the condition wouldn't matter. The Shop-keep brought an old mortar with a large chip in the lip, saying

"A wealthy nobleman customer came into my shop and bumped this over the side, and didn't offer to pay for it. He was too influential for me to say anything to. I'll take whatever I can get for it, just so it isn't a loss, it's been floating around here because I haven't wanted to throw it away."

I gave him ten coppers for it and held it up to the jewel in my shield just as I did for demon drops and other things. My shield vibrated at me and a pop-up message appeared announcing Shield Unlocked!

**Mortar Shield+1: Common 1/20**   
**Ability: Alchemy: Compound, Analyze**   
**Mastery Lvl 1/20**   
**Equip Bonus: Analyze Speed +.01%**

"Alright!" I celebrated. "I finally found the way to unlock Alchemy! Now I can finally use those ingredients I've been harvesting. No more wasting money on potions either."

I could save my celebrations for later though, right then I had lessons to get to and less time to learn them. I equipped my Book Shield both for the chance to let the books I'd bought download into the shields database so that I could read them without them weighting me down, and also, apparently the Book Shield granted me a slight increase in learning speed.

Reading lessons across world boundaries were always interesting. I hadn't realized how lucky I had been the last time I'd been tutored in another world. My teacher, the kindly old village headmaster who'd tried to give a frightened, angry, sullen and confused me good advice that I wasn't interested in hearing at the time, had been from my own world and had thus possessed a knowledge of how to bridge the language-gap. In the end, we managed to parse together the phonetic sounds enough to create a key that I could use to read by. My reluctant magic-instructor also tested me for my magical aptitude using a special attunement sphere that swam with iridescent colors that changed and shifted like the northern lights. 

"It looks here like you are attuned to light magic, which focuses on healing and enhancement spells..." he said.

_:No surprise there, I suppose the Legendary Shield automatically makes it so that I would specialize in buffs and healing. Typical paladin role.:_

"Your main strength appears to lie in Earth Magic, which I suppose makes sense, considering your Legendary Weapon's mythic origins. And last, it looks like you have a slight affinity for Fire magic. Must be some quirk of your personality on that one. Hm."

"Why's that?" I asked him curiously. 

The mage pulled out and unrolled a large map onto the table. For the first time I saw what the entirety of the world I had come to save looked like. It was a large, roughly circular landmass divided into four kingdoms of roughly equal size. There was a mountainous kingdom to the north named Shildfreiden, there was also some kind of weird-looking animal-thing that look like a cross between a turtle and a hydra with many heads above it drawn at the cardinal direction of the north. In the east was a land with what looked like a lot of lakes in it that had a giant blue snake super-imposed on it. The west was flat farmland it looked like a white... was that a deer? No, wait, I think it might be a kirin like from that other world! Anyway, a white- _something_ was drawn there, and to the south was the kingdom of Melromarc, where I was right then, with a picture of a red bird with long fancy tailfeathers on it. I immediately noticed a trend.

_:Four kingdoms, four elements, four weapons...:_

I'd seen Fuushigi Yuugi when I was a young girl, I _knew_ what those animals were. The north was Genbu, and the east was Seiryuu and the south was Suzaku and the West was Byako. It didn't seem like they were worshiped as gods in this world though.

_:I wonder then, if that means that there really **is** a Fuushigi Yuugi world, somewhere out there in the multi-verse:_ I mused privately. _:And if that silly girl really did go there and get into all sorts of strange adventures.:_

"Your shield," the teacher explained. "It is tied to earth magic, the magic of endurance, strength and protection."

"Huh, I see," I said

I we continued the lesson in reading and I stayed in the shop quite late, I suppose, for Gyousou, looking worried, came himself to fetch me.

"Hey look!" I greeted him with happiness, waving aloft my child's elementary primer at him. "I can read! Er, a little. I can read a little."

Still as far as I was concerned, being able to read a little was still better than being able to read nothing at all.

"When I returned to our room and did not find you, I became concerned," he said seriously. 

"I wish we had cell phones in this world, I'm so used to being able to call people if I'm going to be running late."

I decided not to try to explain what a cell phone was at his questioning look and said only that on the world I came from we had an easy way to contact people over long distances. The shopkeeper, bless him, immediately perked up and said that they used magic to do the same and would we like to purchase two emergency communications spheres for an exorbitant price? Gyousou and I both declined the offer as we were hoarding our coin, but I made a mental note of it.

_:I wonder if my Shield has a social tab on it where I can keep a Friend List,:_ I mused to myself as we headed out.

My escort took me back to our rooms, avoiding trouble with the caravanserai who were _indeed_ making a ruckus in the common room, by going round to the side door.

Once in our room, I pulled out the books on magic spells that I had purchased before the Calamity, hoping to learn magic from them. I eagerly cracked open the basic book of fire spells only to discover that, because of the background in magical theory required to truly understand how to activate spells in this world, the texts were as yet far beyond my ability to understand. When I opened the alchemy text however, I had enough of a background to parse out the instructions. I had to ask Gyousou for clarification on what a few of the words meant, but when I sounded them out out loud, my oral translator kicked in.

_:Let's see if my Shield will make potions now,_ : I thought, accessing my shield menu and selecting the Mortar Shield.

My shield changed to a mortar as big as a tureen. A screen popped up before me with the same basic layout for alchemy that I recognized from one of my favorite, in-depth RPG's. It was set default with Compound as the main screen, but I could see two tabs along the top that said Analyze and Recipes. 

I tabbed to the Analyze screen out of curiosity but it looked as though it was mainly used to break down compounds and potion to figure out their component ingredients and crack the code for new crafting recipes. To test the Analyze function I tapped on the mini-inventory drop-down menu, and selected an herb and hit the analyze button, but nothing happened. I next selected one of the cure potions, pouring it into the mortar physically and hitting the Analyze button. I got a little pop-up screen with a bottle icon and a progress bar. It would take about an hour to analyze the basic potion.

While I waited I decided to explore some of the other functions of the Alchemist shield.

_:Let's see if this thing will save a recipe I've read about from a book and know that way, or if I actually have to have made the recipe myself.:_

I selected the Recipe tab and was pleased to see the simple compounds that I had learned from my beginners primer in alchemy, like Weak HP Potion, Weak Antidote, Weak Eyedrops, Weak Mana Potion and so on, were all there, though they were greyed out because I lacked all of the necessary ingredients yet to make any of them.

_:Still, it's a start. As soon as I get a chance and some extra silvers, I'll see about getting hold of some more ingredients for me to work with.:_

Potions, even weak ones, sold for a good amount of money and I could use every copper right then. I next had a look at the Compound screen.

The Compound screen had several empty boxes with up and down arrow-buttons next to them, and furthermore the ingredient boxes had a button between them that said technique on it, which had a drop-down menu of different known alchemy techniques I could use on a particular ingredient. Far to the left there was a box with the word Catalyst next to it, which was greyed out.

"Huh, I didn't see any ingredients to use... I suppose I must have to put them into the mortar.:

I reached into my bag for some herbs I had harvested that morning that I had not yet gotten around to selling. I placed the first herb in the cup and received a pop up message that said Herb Discovered and gave me some flavor text about the plant, it's history and known uses. It also appeared as an option in one of the boxes, which when I added in a second ingredient I discovered were actual drop down menus with quantity boxes next to it.

_:Ah, so I select the herbs I want to use from the drop-down menu, then choose the quantity and... hm... I wonder what the technique button does.:_

I fed in a single unit of the new herb I'd just discovered, called blueleaf, and looked at the only three options available in the technique menu, which was Grind, Boil and Distill. Boil and distill were greyed out, so I hadn't met whatever conditions were necessary to be able to try those out. I probably needed some sort of liquid. 

_:Just one portion of herbs doesn't work for Grind huh...:_

I clicked the up arrow next to the quantity box and as as soon as hit five, the Grind button went from grey to white, indicating that I was able to use it. I received a notification telling me that my action had been a success and I had discovered powdered blueleaf, quality poor. It could be used in tea and as a way to get rid of mild nausea... but it wasn't actually a potion, just an ingredient that was useful by itself. I fiddled around with the sparse options on my menu, upping the quantity of herbs before pressing grind to see if it would have an effect. The more herbs I put in, it seemed (after reading the help menu) the higher the chance that I would increase the quality, but also the higher chance that I would fail my production as long as my proficiency in alchemy was low. 

I went down the list of herbs and seeds I'd gathered with leaf shield, and powdered them, hoping to increase my level. Once I had some real ingredients to work with, I skimmed through my beginners alchemy book, looking for a recipe I had the ingredients for. Much to my disappointment, even though I had plenty of herbs, I lacked at least one ingredient in every single recipe in the book, which meant that I couldn't proceed any further down the Alchemists path that evening.

I turned to look over at my sword-wielding companion, who was asleep on his side, faced away from me. We had a little time yet until the Calamity struck, I still wasn't certain whether following his advice with regards to openly asking for information fro one of the other heroes was really the smartest way to proceed.

_:But I suppose if I'm going to have any luck with any of them, it'll have to be the Bow-Hero. He's a bit of a justice freak, or at least that's how I've heard of him spoken about.:_

It sounded like a virtue, but a virtue like _that_ could quickly and easily become a flaw. I shrugged to myself, putting my work away and blowing out the candle to go to bed. I supposed I'd find out in the morning.


	14. The Pick and the Principle of the Matter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Yuka Picks Fights With Her Mouth and Our Heroes Dive into a Mine to Help out the Bow Hero.

We woke early the next day, dressed and gathered our equipment, then walked down to eat a small breakfast before we headed on towards the mines to hopefully meet up with Ituski, the Hero of the Bow.

"Huh," I remarked. "I guess he didn't come back last night. I wonder what might have kept him."

"I suppose we shall find out presently," my companion replied.

The walk through the town and out of the gate should have been uneventful, but I was stopped by one of the caravan guards.

"Hold there travelers!" the young man who couldn't have been all that much older than me said in an authoritative tone of voice. "Our Caravan Leader has reported that some of the items in our caravan have gone missing. Turn out your bag so that we may search your things."

"No," I said, moving to brush past him. 

I had places to go and things to do. This fellow was not an officer of the Law, he did not have a warrant to search my possessions, and his or his owners misfortunes were not any of my concern, particularly when they so rudely stopped me and started making demands.

The guard was quickly joined by three of his fellow guards and they pointed their spears at me in a threatening manner.

"We're warning you!" one of them said.

"You have no warrant!" I barked back, now getting a little angry. "I know my legal rights in these parts. You aren't the Town Guard, you're not one of the Lords Men. You've _no_ authority here. Your search is unlawful and I will not tolerate it. You may proceed to search me when you have legal grounds to do so, until then... back off!"

The guards visibly hesitated, unnerved at my having called their bluff, but looked like they would continue to make trouble anyway.

"You must be guilty," one of the other guards said. "If you had nothing to hide, you would have let us search you. You must have taken the items!"

"Don't be foolish," I snapped. "I'm not letting you search me because I don't want you idiots pawing through my things and making a mess. I know how your sort operates, you take permission to search a person's belongings as tacit permission to help yourselves to them. Besides, like I said you have no right to go poking through my bags without the permission of the local law. Come back with one of the Town Guard with you and a warrant to search my belongings, or else be on your way."

I moved to walk past them but the idiots were determined to give me my morning workout. One of the caravanners swung in with his pike and I changed shield to my Stone Shield. It was heavier than most of my normal shields but the iron tip of his pike dented on its surface. I swung in, bashing into his face and causing his nose to bleed. I barely felt it when one of the other soldiers pierced my side as i had activated the Shield's defensive buff skill which gave me a temporary status called Stone Skin. I would have to see what improvements I could unlock on this shield later on, once I'd killed a few more monsters from this species. Gyousou, rolling his eyes, quickly dispatched the third fellow without even hurting him, where as bot of my lads were knocked out unconscious and bleeding from the shield-bashes to the face.

This of course, called over the other guards and we were arrested. I sighed in irritation, not least because I had to put up with Gyousou sending me silent, _I told you so_ looks. The town Sheriff was a caricature right out of a story book; fat, balding, well dressed and utterly corrupt-looking. He even had one of those thin, waxed mustaches and sharp goatees, like he spent all day twirling it and mua-ha-ha-haiing to himself in a corner somewhere. My day just kept getting better and better.

My bags were turned out onto the floor, and my items were sifted through none too gently and I scowled at them angrily for it, for they treated my books badly. I hated that.

"Name?" the Sheriff demanded in a bored tone.

"Sugimoto," I growled.

He frowned, something clearly occurring to him.

"Hey, aren't you the damned Hero of the Shield, the one who raped their companion?"

"Didn't do it," I spat. "Not that it's any business of _yours_. We were on official business for the Crown."

I presented the official Hero-badge I'd been issued along with the rest of the Heroes when we'd come to this world. Because we were essential to fighting the Calamity, it gave us a form of diplomatic immunity, so we could go about our work unimpeded.

"And for the record," I added. "Those caravan guards were attempting to search my belongings unlawfully. They attacked first."

"Yeah, like we'd believe you," the sheriff scoffed. "We can't keep you in custody... but we're also not required to shelter you either. Your stay at the inn's been revoked, you're exiled from the limits of the town. We don't want to see you or your friend back here ever again, got me?"

"Hey!" I snapped. "I have reading lessons I've already paid for."

"Too bad, now get out."

I was escorted none too gently, along with Gyousou, to the town gate, and prodded on my way with the business end of the spear on my back. I glared at the guards, seriously considering whether I really wanted to waste my time and energy saving these people or whether it might be better to just kick back and let the demons eat them.

"You should have let them search our bags," Gyousou muttered.

"It's not the point, it's the principle. Evil thrives on petty corruption as well as corruption on a large scale. You let guys like that push you around over the little things, it makes it easier for them to push you around over bigger things, and you have less room to complain when they do. They just say "well you had no problem with that before, then why are you making such a fuss with this?" and they just keep getting away with things. I hate guys like that. Then again, considering what their king is like... it's not a big surprise."

I scowled and muttered

"Man, kings are the _worst_. The absolute worst. I hate them."

There was silence for a long time, then Gyousou said

"You shouldn't be so quick to judge all kings by the one. There are kings who are just, who see clearly their duty to protect their people and to rule with mercy and righteousness."

"Oh, but it's _not_ just the one king I've met," I snapped, now in a thoroughly foul mood. "This ain't my first rodeo. I'm not from the world you come from either, I'm from the world next door to it. That's how I know about the Twelve Kingdoms."

I tried not to sound bitter as I relayed to him the events of my time spent in his world. How I'd come along with a classmate named Youko, who'd been chosen to rule Kei, and had then been tricked by the Royal Kou into believing that _I_ was the rightful ruler and _she_ the imposter, and about how I'd been trained to be an assassin. I skimmed over most of the story, except for the mention of my teacher in his world, and ended with

"So I returned home to my world, where my parents did not miss me at all, and I thought I was going to have a nice easy time reading books playing games but then... _this_ happened. It seems like every problem I have is the fault of those damn kings."

Gyousou looked at me with a look weighted with non-plussedness. He raised an eloquent eyebrow.

" _Every_ problem?" he said pointedly.

I paused then conceded his valid point. Kings caused problems sure enough, but I'd done my fair share of work on it too.

"Okay, not _every_ problem," I admitted in a grudging tone. "In my defense, I _did_ plan on doing everything right on this world. I started out feeling pretty happy about it all. I was going to get to be a real Hero, in my own story this time! I even had a friend, or at least, someone I'd thought was a friend."

"You never did tell me how you came to be accused of a crime," Gyousou said clearly asking for that story too.

I sighed a little. I didn't want to talk about it, because it was still a sore point with me, but he'd been a good sword and he'd stuck around when he realistically could have just wandered off during the night. So I sucked it up and told him about Mein, and how she had wrongly accused me of raping her, and how the king had railroaded me into a sentencing with a short mock up of a trial in which I was not allowed to present evidence in my defense. I skimmed over the awful humiliation of my sentencing, but I think he might have seen the tears that welled up in my eyes at the memory of it and a scowled at him when he looked at me with pity. 

"So whoever it is that's selling "illegal" slaves in this shitty kingdom decided he'd kidnap the Shield Hero and see how much he could sell me for... and that's the point where you met me."

"Hmmm... that's a run of bad luck," Gyousou began.

"Poor decisions too," I said bluntly. "I should _never_ have trusted her. I should have learned my lesson about trusting people the first time but noooo, I just had to go and stupidly have faith in someone. All of this is my fault, you're right. This is what happens when I let people get close to me. They betray me and use me."

Gyousou looked at me in plain dismay.

"That is not the lesson you're supposed to take away from all of this," he protested. "It's not wrong to trust people, you trust me don't you?"

I looked at him cynically. He thought I'd missed the ways his attention seemed to perk up when i mentioned world hopping. He thought that I hadn't figured out that he was staying close to me in hopes of making it back to his own world.

"We both know you're here for your own reasons Mister Saku," I replied. "I don't hold that against you, it's reassuring to me to know that our individual interests are aligned. I'm not looking for a friend or bosom companion or whatever, I've been down that road and I know how it ends. it's enough for me now, to know that we're allies."

Gyousou gave me a very troubled look but said nothing more and it was then that we reached the mouth of the mining area that I had heard that the Bow-kid had last been seen at. There was an iron track leading into a cliff face with a large tunnel mined into it and shored up with beams. A mining cart lay nearby it on its side. 

"Looks like the place," I remarked. "Spooky."

We pulled out a lantern we'd purchased at the town, and, because I had learned that sometimes even the most mundane things yielded strange benefits because of my weird Shield, I walked around among the litter and detritus near the cave, placing my shield near random articles to see if I got a ding. I unlocked a Rope Shield, a Mining Shield, a Lantern Shield, and a Panning Shield. The Rope Shield had a Skill called Lariat that could be used to aid in climbing. The Mining shield, learned from a pick, equipped a mining mini-game that made it possible for me to mine ore. Same with the Panning Shield, which worked the same sort of mini-game in rivers and streams. The Lantern Shield was basically just a handy flashlight. I equipped the Miners Shield to see if I could hunt up some ore while we went in and searched the tunnels for any sign of the Bow Hero. I was pleased with having found lots of ore and metals to work with, but Gyousou accused me of wasting time.

To our fortune, the mine seemed to be infested with mutant rats and bats, called Grey Cheeplings and Bluewings respectively. I collected lots of demon drops for their respective shields. The Bluewings unlocked a shield called Air Strike Shield, which placed a long-distance shield briefly over an area a few feet away without me having to physically be there. It had a vast potential and I would be leveling the hell out of it! The Cheeplings, which were really just giant rats, unsealed a shield called Skittering Shield, it was a cheap fairly useless one-off like the orange, yellow and red shields I'f got from Balloons. No Equipment bonuses or extra skills, barely anything worth raising at all. I tried looking down their series to see if there was anything worth pursuing, but it seemed like I hadn't met whatever mysterious condition existed that would make me able to unseal another shield in their series. 

"Oh yeah!" I shouted triumphantly, when my shield absorbed a piece of chalk and unsealed the Marking Shield. 

Ostensibly, it made marks to guide one's path, but I was betting that I had at _last_ found the shield that would enable me to perform one of the other main functions of an effective tank, which was to establish the Order of Battle, by Marking the enemy. I'd been wondering why I hadn't been able to find a marking function in any of the menus. It looked like I just hadn't unlocked the right shield for it.

"Why the celebration?" Gyousou inquired.

I explained to him the concept of Marking and how it worked with a proper tank who did their job well. 

"...and that way, not everyone is attacking just any enemy, willy-nilly. It establishes an order of battle so that everyone focuses their energies on taking out one enemy very quickly. It makes the battle flow more efficiently, and cuts down on wasted maneuvers."

"I have never seen such," he said with a shrug. "But I have recently noticed a marked difference in the way you are able to hold the enemy's attention so that I can take it out from the outside without any fight on its part, so I suppose I shall take you at your word."

I realized with a start that I had not ever actually taken my sword, gyousou, aside, and taught hm about proper battel flow when working with a tank. He'd just been killing enemies... well, because what else would he do with them? I should really educate him properly, so that he knew what he was doing, and what he would be expected to do as my DPS.

_:Later tonight, after this mission. I'll talk with him properly about parties and tanking work.:_

We came to the end of the tunnel without ever having found any trace of the Bow Hero, but at the end of the tunnel there was a sharp drop off, leading to who knew where. There was a snorting, growling noise coming up from the depths. 

"Ya gotta be kidding me," I muttered. "It came... from the deeps. The Balrog of Morgoth!"

Seriously, that part had used to give me nightmares as a child. Looking down into the dark, even with my lantern Shield there was a part of me that just said Nope. Nopenopenope.

"Well, I think we've seen all there is to see here," I said, turning to leave.

"There's something down there," Gyousou pointed out.

"Oh, yeah, down in the depths of the old abandoned mine," I replied. "The old abandoned mine that was probably abandoned for that reason."

Gyousou brightened then said

"If it was abandoned, then that means that there's probably ore still down there. Not little tiny pieces, but nice big chunks. Chunks you could sell for money."

I paused, frowning at his blatant and irritatingly effective manipulation tactic. Then there came a particularly emphatic growl from down below.

"And a cash reward for killing that monster," he added in a tone meant to entice me. "You said you wanted to kill something big. You could unlock a nice shield form a monster like that."

"Why are you so fired up about it?" I asked, trying not to show how very much I did not want to go down there.

It was dark. It was scary. And there was something down there that _definitely_ wanted to eat me.

"I come from a people who work mines on my world," he said with a shrug. "It goes against the grain for me to leave such a situation alone."

Somehow the thought that Gyousou had experience in actual mines did make me feel a little bit better. Enough anyways for me to push aside the images of the Mine of Moria that had terrified me as a child and concentrate on making money and killing monsters.

"Alright, but if we hear any drumbeats... we are _so_ gone!" I stipulated firmly as I changed my shield to Rope Sheild, secured the lariat to a nearby boulder, and lowered us both down the hole and into the depths.

The area we landed in, lit up by my lantern shield's skill "Illumination," was rough hewn and uneven, and it sparkled and even glowed in some places, with stones and ores not yet wrested from the ground. I took out my Mining Shield, determined to both level its progression up some and also to hopefully gain some useful ores. Gyousou looked partly disapproving of my priorities, but said nothing as we made our way deeper into the shaft. Monsters we attracted to the sound of me banging away at the rock, of course, so we had plenty of things to fight as well. 

"Sugimoto," he called softly, as I prepared to mine at a particularly promising-looking rock face.

I turned and looked, to see him holding up what looked unmistakably like a wizards wand.

"Most miners don't carry wands," I remarked.

"It seems we're on the right trail," Gyousou pointed.

There was a discernible litter of items not associated with mining going deeper into the shaft. It looked like we'd picked up the tail of an adventurer at least, if not to say possibly the very one I was looking for. We followed it, fighting monsters of ever-increasing tenacity as we went. The growls that had emanated faintly up the shaft when I stood at the top were growing noticeably louder the further in we went.

"Here's a puzzling mystery," I remarked in a conversational tone as I tanked another bat-creature with slightly longer fangs than any of its brethren.

"What's that?" Gyousou asked with equal casualness, cutting into it from the side when it swooped into my shield.

"Why hasn't whatever is making all that noise come to investigate me when I've been banging away at this rock the whole time?"

Gyousou was saved from having to answer my apropos musing query by the source of said growls at last deciding to show itself. It was a huge black dog, larger than even a Newfoundland. It was muscular, and it had two heads, both of which were snarling at us.

"Well," I said. "Whoever said 'two heads are better than one,' never got a look at this creature."

Gyousou had a bad habit of rushing forward, even though _I_ was the tank, and it was _my_ job to go first and make the pull. I was going to have to have a long talk with him about that soon. He rushed right at the creature and swung in, hitting it square on one of its faces. Naturally, the other one bit him. I sighed and rushed in to join him, central crystal of my shield lighting up but only yellow... I had it's attention but had not pulled the bulk of its aggression on me. I hit it with another shield bash, and another, wishing that I'd unlock the shield that would give me my Flash ability or whatever worked on this world. Using a sheild from the series of monster that you were fighting usually worked well to keep that type of monsters aggro on me, but if I didn't have a shield from that monster type, I had no good way of pulling hate save hitting it in the face repeatedly. 

The black dog howled, and out of the crevices crawled a number of mobs; three winged monsters and six rats in total. I changed-shield to my Air Strike Shield that I could use long-range to pull the winged ones, as those tended to be the most annoying to deal with. I slapped all three of the bat-critters to pull hate, then kept them on me while Gyousou came at them from their vulnerable flanks. I tried out my new Marking shield on the rats since there were so many and it only made sense to get in the habit of establishing the order of battle properly even though there was only the two of us. I was very pleased to see the targets marked clearly with light-up neon numbers over their heads. I then changed-shield to the Skittering Shield to pull their hate and keep their hate focused on me so Gyousou could do his work. So naturally, while Gyousou was mopping up the mobs, the main boss decided he was going to come over and chew on me.

"Ow! Stupid, hairy mutt!" I yelped in pain, as Cujo took a double-sized bite on my side.

My defense was off the chain so things hurt me less, but this boss was significantly stronger than anything I'd faced yet, so when he decided to bite me, I took notice.

"Sugimoto! Hold on!" Gyousou called, looking frantically over at me, clearly worried I was in real danger.

"Don't worry about me," I said, still keeping my shield up and for the most art ignoring the boss' attacks.

This was part of my job as a tank, after all. 

"I'll keep aggro, _you_ just worry about mopping up all the rest so they don't come round ta bite us in the ass."

Gyousou, bless him, did as requested and the rats were quickly dispatched. 

"Air Strike Shield!" I shouted, unlocking the skill I'd unsealed to try using it in a different way, and just as I'd hoped, I found that it could be used for a knock-back effect. 

I rushed in and slammed my shield in dundermutts faces and while it concentrated on trying to find a way to get around my shield. It didn't have any luck and Gyousou used the opportunity to stab it repeatedly from the side, slicing off it's health but it could sure take a beating. 

"Tough bugger!" I growled as it nearly succeeded in leaping over my shields defenses to try to chew on my face, even as Gyousou kept hacking away at it to kill it. 

"I think he's about done for though," I added as I slammed my shield into its face to keep its aggro on me. "One more round should do it!"

"Meteor Arrow!" a voice cried out, off to the right. 

A blaze of light, like a firework, arrowed in from the edge of my vision, nearly hitting Gyousou, then slamming into the dog-feind that we had almost finished off. The two-headed mini-boss fell over, and a window popped up in my vision alerting me of XP. Gyousou and I, ignoring our rude and unasked for interloper, began dismantling the beast to feed the spare parts to my shield. The head unlocked

**Cerberus Shield+1: Uncommon 1/40**   
**Ability: Double-Dog Bite**   
**Mastery Lvl: 1**   
**Equipment Bonus: +.2% Melee Defense Bonus.**

  
"Alright," I celebrated tiredly. "My first Uncommon. I got a point-two-percent melee boost. We're almost into the whole numbers now."

"Aren't you going to thank me?" the bow-kid asked expectantly, emerging from the hole where he and his party had apparently been hiding out from that dog.

"For what?" I replied flatly. "You showed up at the end and poached our kill, and now I have to share XP with you even though you rudely pushed in where you weren't needed. Poacher."

"Now, now, that isn't how we make friends, Sugimoto," Gyousou reminded me pointedly.

"Sorry," I said with a bit a humor. "Black dog on my shoulder."

I looked around expectantly for someone to get my joke. Nothing. 

"Well anyway," I said, done with my somewhat gruesome task of feeding monster parts to my shield. "I _suppose_ I should thank you."

I didn't really feel like it since he'd been such a putz about everything, but Gyousou was right in that I was trying to make nice with the bow-kid. I wanted information from him after all.

"You're welcome," Itsuki said in a rather pleased-with-himself sort of tone. "After all, true justice is in the mercy of helping all those who need, it even if they _are_ criminals and rapists who should have been left for dead."

"Dude, I'm not a criminal and I'm certainly not a rapist," I said. "I was falsely accused."

"Justice has already been decided upon," he said firmly. "The king wouldn't lie."

"Ugh, god, was I _ever_ like this kid?" I muttered to myself.

It hurt a little, knowing that I had been once. I'd had a narrative all made up inside my head and had willfully disregarded anything that fell outside of that narrative no matter how compelling. Sadly, this kid was believing it because it was what he needed to believe. Otherwise, how was he supposed to feel righteous and good about himself and that he was allied with the right side?

"Gyousou," I said. "I don't think that there's going to be any getting through to this idiot, his brain's been turned to mush and poured out his ears by his silly justice crusade."

Gyousou suppressed a snort of amusement and said

"Try anyway. You loose nothing by it."

"Fine, but I think it's a hopeless cause. His mind's already made up."

"You yourself was once where he is now," Gyousou reminded me gently. "Someone helped you when you needed it, even though you wouldn't accept it then. Don't you have something of a debt to pay forward? If nothing else, you loose nothing by acting honorably."

I sighed but conceded his point. After all, it looked like the universe had paired me with a wise partner, who seemed to be willing to take a lot in stride. I had little interest in trying to pound sense into Itsuki's thick skull, but I was surprised to find how much Gyousou Saku's good opinion of me was coming to matter.

"If I told you I had irrefutable evidence to cement my case, would you hear me then?" I asked. "It's only just, after all, to hear all sides of the issue. Don't you find it suspicious that I was never allowed to speak on my behalf?"

"Because you were clearly guilty."

"No. Because I was _right_ , and that corrupt king didn't want me proving Mein as having borne false witness by lying in her accusation about me. I don't know why, but they've all got it in for me. They have from the moment they summoned me here. Against my will, I might add. Surely you must have noticed how they've treated me differently from the rest of you other three."

"You weren't treated any differently," Itsuki insisted. "You just didn't have anyone who wanted to join your party, and with everything that's happened, we all now know why."

Gyousou now stepped up to the boy, towering intimidatingly over him.

"Child," he said in an incredibly commanding tone.

Sometimes, when he wanted to, Gyousou could just exude this aura about him that could cow even me at my snarkiest. Most times he seemed content to masquerade as a common swordsman, but there were times when there was something about him, an almost regal presence.

"Sugimoto has his share of faults, including a tendency towards underhanded practices in pursuit of his goals, but true justice demands that he be allowed to present his evidence to be listened to fairly and without bias."

Sadly, rather than make the boy realize his error and reflect upon himself, Gyousou's little pep-talk only highlighted the cognitive dissonance Itsuki lived with and thus made him even more defensive of his position.

"The matter has already been decided!" he said, his face looking more desperate and scared than resolute or certain.

I felt a little sorry for him... I'd _been_ him once. 

As he picked up his wounded mage-companion, who was apparently the reason that they'd all been trapped down the mine-shaft hidden away in a nook where the dog couldn't get at them, Gyousou looked like he would have pursued the matter. I restrained him.

"Let him go," I said with a sad shake of my head. "He's not going to listen, he'll just find a way to twist all your words up in his own mind until he's even _more_ certain he's right. There's no point in wasting more of our time here."

Gyousou frowned and looked like he would have been stubborn about it then sighed unhappily, acknowledging my point.

"It seems that our only choice at the moment is to speak with our actions," he said resignedly. 

I had a few actions I'd like to speak with, starting with lining that damn king, Mein and the entire Royal Court and Clergy up for one long stooge-slapping, just going right on down the line. As he turned away, I decided to try one last time, hoping I might count on his gratitude for the rescue for even one small favor.

"Oh hey, Bow Hid!" I called at his back as he headed toward the surface.

Something had been bothering me about my shield for a while now and I had only recently come to a new theory I wanted to try out.

"What do you want?" he said in a superior tone, pausing to look back at me. 

"Just two questions," I said. "One, do you have a Weapon Copy on your Legendary Bow?"

"Of course," he said, sounding puzzled why I would even ask. "Me, Ren, and Motoyasu all have it. Ren showed us his and we were able to find the function in our menus."

I thought hard, nodding to myself. The theory was coming together.

"Second, what is it that _you_ feel makes your weapon stronger, and how do you use it to make your Bow more powerful?"

"That's two questions," he argued.

"They're faceted together and play into a larger issue," I replied.

"Well fine then, since you seem to be having so much trouble with even the most basic things, I guess I can explain since you helped out a little," he said in a condescending tone.

I tried not to visibly grit my teeth and I know I bit my tongue. This was what I came here for after all, if he wanted to be a little brat that was on him, I'd just have to swallow my pride.

"The most important thing in a Legendary Weapon is Rarity," he said. "Having a rarer weapon grants attack bonuses to my bow, ramping up damage exponentially the higher the weapons Rarity is. The difference in boosts between a common and an uncommon is huge, to the point that using ores to gain incremental stat increases on a less rare bow is a waste of materials. Just as important though, is increasing your Job level. My Job is "Ranged DPS" so I have a list of Stats and Attributes attached to my job that support and increase my ability to do my job well. Perception increases my aim, letting me land critical hits for damage, Agility let's me move more quickly to keep out of the way of enemy attack and so on. I can increase these and my Job Skills by feeding monster drops. Each drop feeds a different stat or Attribute. Furthermore, once I get an individual type of bow that's past a Rare, I have the option of being able to attach one of it's unique abilities to my Job level menu by choosing to reset its Rarity down to common. I loose all of its power and extra skills, but in exchange I can level that Ability independently, and with the right ability, that can be invaluable."

"Hm," I said, mulling the differences and similarities over in my mind.

"And this all comes from some game you're familiar with on your own world?" I asked, just to double check.

"Of course it does!" he snapped irritatedly. "Now I've answered your questions, so I don't have to waste more time on you."

"I wish you good fortune in the wars to come," I replied, just to piss him off by being polite.

I made Gyousou stick around and guard my back while I mined along the seam, pulling out some hefty chunks of sparkling ore from the ground before the miners could come and take it all. I only gave up when my growling stomach made me stop.

"I guess that's good enough for now, this should be more than enough to test out his way of doing things," I said, partly to myself and partly to my sword, Gyousou.

"You look like you've been brooding over something all day," he remarked as we used my rope shield to pull us up to the surface.

"I have a theory now," I said. "Call me superstitious though, but I don't want to say anything out loud unless I put a hex on the whole thing. When we make camp, I'm going to be doing some work with my Shield."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the fun one for me ( I seriously put way, way way, waaaaay too much thought into how the mechanics work... cuz that's ma jam). Those of you who aren't so interested in getting nerdy with me can probably skip it, there's a breif summery of what Yuka works out in the chapter following.


	15. Shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Hero Learns the Particular Abilities of Her Shield

Gyousou and I trudged along back to the surface, hauling a heavy sack of ore I'd mined in the cave along with us. I found a good spot to make camp next to a stream since we were now _persona non gratae_ in Lute Village. Technically, I could use my Heroic Immunity pass to force our way in, as by order of the Royal Family I was not allowed to be refused any reasonable request for food and shelter in Melromarc, but I didn't feel that it would be wise. It was too bad about their sheriff, the people of the town had been pretty nice to me. 

Once we had the camp set up and a fire going, I changed-shield to the Blue Egg Shield, which was the one that came with a Cooking Skill. I had a few shields I used for combat regularly, and then I had the craft-shields that came with what I would have called crafting jobs. 

So far I had a Leaf Shield for finding and harvesting raw materials to make potions from out in the wild, and a new Alchemy Shield for making potions, a Stealth Shield that let me essentially use stealth mechanics as well as a a Lockpicking Shield. I had a shield with a Cooking skill, that I used to make our meals out in the wild. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed lately that Gyousou had found the meals that my shield had been making were more tasty... I didn't know, I couldn't really taste anything at all. The recent events had turned everything to ash in my mouth. 

_:If there are mining and cooking and harvesting shields, I wonder if there are other shields, like for armor-making and leather work,:_ I mused to myself.

While I cooked, Gyousou began his own nightly ritual of seeing to his equipment. His sword, while well cared for every night, was beginning to show its wear. There were nicks and scratches on it from some of the monsters with tough hides we had fought in our travels. Still, every night he went over it with his whetstone. When I focused on it, my shield, to my great surprise, reacted to his whetstone.

"Hey, do you mind if I see that?" I asked him, holding out a hand for his whetstone.

Gyousou shook his head and fished in his pack for the sad remainder of his other whetstone that he'd already used up. It looked like he was becoming perfectly aware of my shields habit of absorbing things. I put the whetstone to the jewel and sure enough it was absorbed unlocking

**Sharpening Shield+1: Common 1/20**   
**Ability: Weapon Sharpen**   
**Mastery Lvl: 1**   
**Equip Bonus: +.01% chance of Skill Copy on Sharpen**

"Huh," I said. "That sound's promising. Hey Gyousou, can I borrow your sword? I want to try this out."

"You may borrow _another_ weapon that is _not_ my sword," He said firmly. "I know that your first experiments do not always end in success and I am not chancing my only weapon on a failure."

A failure would likely destroy it.

"Fair enough," I acknowledged, fishing through my pack to see if there was anything else I could try out. 

Nothing. Because I was a Shield. No weapons for me.

_:Oh well, maybe later,:_ I promised myself. _:If it really can improve a weapon, that would be an enormous bonus. I could get ordinary weapons, improve them, and sell them back at a profit.:_

"I'm going to start my work with my Shield," I said, heading for the tent for some privacy. "Call me if you need me."

"Very well," he nodded. "Best of luck to you."

I gave him a wan, somewhat anxious smile and settled in. I took a deep breath to calm my nerves and accessed my Status Screen so that I could search for the Weapon's improvements tabs that was _**definitely, absolutely, without** **question**_ , ** _bound to be there_** now that I had unlocked the method of tanking properly. The screen fuzzed just a little bit.

_:Lets see, how did they say that this went?:_ I mused to myself, trying to figure out the mechanics of it. 

Based on what they'd told me, Ren's Sword and Motoyasu's Spear seemed to work differently from one another. Ren believed that raising ones Proficiency or Mastery (I was a little unclear on the difference) in the weapon and then resetting it would gather a wellspring of energy which could then be used to purchase an increase in the Rarity of the weapon, which in turn would give an overall boost to that weapons abilities, equipment bonuses and overall performance. In contrast, Motoyasu believed that modifying a weapon with ores to increase its physical attributes or using monster drops as catalysts to unlock a weapon's Status Enchants and Spirit Bonuses was the best way to increase a weapon's power. Itsuki had claimed that a weapon's individual stats didn't matter much beyond it's level of Rarity; it was the Job Leveling System that was where the real advantage lay. 

_:Hmm... I suppose the sensible answer would be that each Legendary Weapon works a bit differently for whomever it is that wielding it. However, all three of these gamer-boys agree that Weapon Copy is a skill that their Legendary Weapons all possess, and mine does not have it.:_

I was a little bit salty about that, I couldn't lie. 

_:And their weapons seem to have a way to receive random drops from monsters,:_ I thought enviously. : _I want random drops too! Where's my tab?! It should be **right here**!:_

I let out an aggrieved sigh, feeling poorly done by and cheated by my weapon. I looked at my dear shield, talking to it out loud as I had done once that awful day when I'd needed my music to console me

"It's us against the world you know. You an' me," I said to it. "We're not any less than those other guys. We should get to have drops too. I don't see why I can't seem to find the button for it in our menu, my dear. It should be right here, I know it should."

My eyes played tricks on me because the menu screen in front of me... twitched. Like it went fuzzy for a moment, as though an old cable TV had momentarily lost its signal. Then the Items tab fuzzed and the drop-down menu for it unfolded, revealing the Drops menu in its Items list.

"Oh." I said, feeling silly that my own shield had to show me the spot to where my dumb self could see it. " _There_ it is. I don't know why I could not see it there before. I must be blind."

So if there were drops, then the tab that Motoyasu used for weapon modding (or tempering as he called it) and using catalysts on my Weapon must _absolutely_ be around here somewhere. Motoyasu had said that he used it all the time, and he certainly hadn't sounded like he was lying. I had probably just skimmed over it because I wasn't looking carefully. Maybe I could find something in the Help menu?

"But I have to be honest with you, my shield," I said, treating my Legendary Weapon as though it was my old stuffed toy Bagheera I'd had when I was a child. "That Help Menu of yours is probably the _least_ helpful thing about you. It only tells you things after you already know them, and even then, it never seems to say much or offer much clarification. It's as though it likes to be mysterious."

Regardless, I pushed on the help Menu anyway, hoping to find at least a directory for finding Motoyasu's tab for strengthening my weapon. Knowing my luck it was buried deep in a sub menu, somewhere I'd never find it. The Help menu did not have a search bar or an FAQ, so... it was altogether rather useless. 

"It doesn't even cover the basics," I complained to my shield. "Are you really _trying_ to be helpful?"

In frustration I activated the MP3 tab on my shield, my music playlists menu popping up, and I played a soothing classical music that I used when I needed to do some hard studying. Thus armed, I dove in!

"It's here in the Shield-tree Menu, isn't it," I muttered to my Shield as it was the only place I hadn't yet checked. "Last place I'd look for it. You really _should_ have that tab put sensibly at the top of the main screen where I can find it easily."  
  
I skimmed over the Shield Selection Screen, which was the screen with the great branching series of shield-series trees, deciding that if Ren's thoughts about Proficiency, or rather, how often a particular shield had been used was accurate, then I would be best advised to start with the one that I used a lot. I tapped on the Orange Sheild, mainly because it wasn't actually very powerful or important so it wouldn't hurt anything if I used it to experiment with.

**Orange Shield+2: Common 6/20**   
**Ability: Aggro Air Demon**   
**Mastery Lvl: 2**   
**Equipment Bonus: +.02 Defense**

_:Huh.:_ I thought to myself. _:I could have swore that that gauge next to it's Common rarity designation wasn't there **before**. But then again, I don't use the shield-menu to change over my shields either, I just sort of change them with my mind. That .02% defense is different too. It used to be only a plus-oh-one. I suppose that when you level up your Proficiency or Mastery or whatever, you gain an increase in whatever equipment bonus it has attached to it.:_

I clicked back to the Help Menu, hoping to find come clarification on just what the difference was between Proficiency and Mastery was and miraculously found an entry for it now that I knew where to look. Proficiency, it turned out was a gauge that was leveled up in order to achieve the next rank of Mastery. It could be leveled up by use (that was, having it equipped in battle) or by feeding it monster drops to level it manually. It took a certain amount of Proficiency points to reach the next Mastery level, 20 for Commons, 40 for Uncommons, 60 for Rares, 80 for Epics and 100 for Legendary-level Rarity. Mastery increased a shield's intrinsic stats and properties, like the Equipment Bonus. I already knew what the reward was for filling up a weapon's Mastery was, it was that magic energy that Ren had talked about.

_:Well, that was useful, but let's see what Motoyasu's tempering system does.:_

It looked like the way to do this was to go into the shield-series trees and select the shield I wanted to work with first, then I could make improvements on it from that shield's individual Shield Menu. I accessed the Orange Shield, and looked at it's Shield Menu, thinking that maybe it _did_ look a little different from what I'd seen before. Along the top, next to the "Abilities" tab there was a tab marked "Strengthen." Selecting it brought me to a screen with two sections marked "Tempering" and "Catalyst."

Selecting the "Tempering" button took me to a screen with a drop-down menu and a few other boxes with fields of information. When I selected the drop-down bar, it revealed a whole lot of different ores to choose from. I just picked one at random, one that she had a lot of ores in it and selected it. The box next to the drop-down showed that Tempering with this Ore would give me a bonus to my Defense stat, meaning that I'd would take less damage in battle if I had this shield equipped. It also informed me that the Tempering "probability of success" with that Ore was 68%

_:I wonder if that probability of success is dependent on what ore I use, or if it's how much ore I use?:_

Curious now, I scrolled through the other ores available in the drop-down just to see what was what. Some ores offered bonuses to my main attributes if I tempered that shield with it, some ores offered unique abilities but most of those were greyed out as unavailable to me. I also learned that different ores had different probabilities of success ranging from one hundred percent down to zero percent and that if I increased the amount of ore for the Tempering, sometimes the probability of success would increase, but sometimes it would actually _decrease_!

_:So the Tempering process seems pretty straight forward. Let's see about Catalysts now._ :

I clicked back to the Strengthening screen to try out the Catalyst section. Clicking on the Catalyst button took me to a screen that was divided into two screens "Status" and "Spirit." Both options had drop-down menus that, when selected, revealed a whole long list of monster-drops from all of the different monsters I'd fought since I'd been able to start fighting them. Everything from Balloon-skins from the various balloons to shards of eggs from egg-monsters to rabbits feet from the usapils. A little experimentation showed me that using drops to increase the "Spirit" enchant section would imbue the weapon with special powers, however, the "probability of success" with the drops I had on hand were all incredibly low, like, most of them were under twenty percent. Using monster drops as Catalysts in the "status" screen would increase a weapons particular individual stats like durability and weight and so on. Different catalysts offered different options with different rates of success.

_:So. That's interesting,:_ I thought, taking a little time to consider the way Motoyasu leveled up his spear.

_:It reminds me a bit of the weapons and armor mod-system from Fallout 4._ :

In that game, I could have the crappiest piece of armor or the most basic 10MM pistol, but if I crafted the right sorts of mods with the junk I'd collected I could improve certain aspects of it. An improved magazine would increase my bullet-carrying capacity, an improved receiver would increase my damage output, or a different barrel would increase my range. If I used better mods and had the right skills unlocked, I could improve even a crappy weapon to something on par with a legendary drop. It looked like using Motoyasu's Weapon Strengthen System would allow me to improve each individual shield's performance and stats by modding it with ores and magic-catalysts.

_:It's a great way to level up an individual shields performance!:_ I thought, feeling pleased.

However, the word "Strengthen" as the title for the Tab didn't really work for me, So I went into my setting's menu to see if there was a way for me to re-title the tabs to something more intuitive, and there was! I re-titled "Strengthen" to **"Mod"** and confirmed it to change it.Then I paused, clicked back to the main Shield Menu and looked around, feeling puzzled.

_:It's strange that I don't see Ren or Itsuki's systems here, I'm **sure** they must be here somewhere!:_

I searched the page for that Mastery tab for resetting my weapons Mastery level to zero and converting it to Energy Points that I'd heard of from Ren, feeling momentarily confused when I did not see it. Perhaps it was in another menu? I tabbed back over to the main shield menu, and it fuzzed out again, twitching like a video game with a glitch in it. I switched back to the shield-tree grid and selected the Orange Shield again, opening it's individual Shield Menu. I finally spotted the Mastery tab and understood why I might have missed it, as it was labeled "Proficiency" instead. It was also tucked along the _side_ of the Shield Menu screen, instead of at the top where tabs _usually_ went. Predictably enough, it had been staring me right in the face the whole time and I hadn't noticed it. I fiddled with the settings a bit until I was able to place the tab at the top right next to Motoyasu's "Mod" tab. I also changed it's tab-name to Mastery to make it easy on me.

"Let's try it out!" I celebrated carefully with my Shield, very cautiously _not_ examining my luck too closely, only going along with my expectations.

I tapped on the new Mastery tab to open the shield's Mastery Screen. The screen heading told me the name of the Shield and it's Rarity level, then the next line said "Mastery Level: 2" with a dotted-line progress bar next to it that had two little sections lit up green out of twenty greyed-out sections. The next line said "Proficiency" with a glowing progress bar that was a little less than halfway full and the numbers 6/20 next to it.

_:That's funny, this looks like a button I can push,:_ I thought, examining the Proficiency Progress bar.

Playing a hunch, I pressed my finger against the progress bar. To my surprise and delight, another little window popped up that said "Increase Proficiency" on it with a drop-down menu that I discovered would show me all of the materials materials from monsters I'd fought. the little up and down arrows next to a number box showed me the quantity of the drops I could use, versus how many I had in my inventory. A little experimentation revealed that I could scroll through the selection of monster drops and select some to feed to my shield to manually increase the proficiency points on the Proficiency Gauge. The controls were reminiscent of the systems I'd already used in some of the old Final Fantasy games, so it felt intuitive, though a little clunky, to me.

I clicked on the up arrow until I'd transferred twenty orange Balloon-skins to feed the Proficiency Gauge just to see what would happen. To my great pleasure the little 6/20 gauge next to my Orange Shield dinged several times at the number bumped upwards. I experimented a bit with different types of drops and noted that the higher the level of the gauge, the more drops it took to bump it up. That was only to be expected though, and could be compensated for by using drops from tougher monsters which were worth more.

_:I'll have to experiment with that later, and get a better idea of things, but not right now.:_

I was pleased to see my Orange Shield increase to 16/20. My defense increased to .016% for that shield!

"So it _is_ possible to raise Proficiency artificially by using drops, just like Ren said _he_ can," I confirmed. "I wonder what happens when I max out its Mastery and reset it like Ren was talking about earlier."

So, I lather-rinse-repeated using my drops to feed the Proficiency Gauge. Every time I maxed out the proficiency, it reset the proficiency gauge to one and bumped up the Mastery level one more number. Of course, the weaker the monster I'd fought, the weaker and more common the drop, the less points it gave me on my gauge. When I was done maxing out my Mastery Level, the Shield read

**Orange Sheild+20: Common 20/20**   
**Ability: Aggro Air Demon**   
**Mastery lvl: 20 (Max)**   
**Equipment Bonus: +.020% Defense**

_:The way I understand what I heard from Itsuki and Ren, I can reset the weapons Mastery level to zero and it gives me something like a special energy or points that I can then use to increase it's Rarity level which will increase it's over-all stats and unlock new abilities or skills. So I guess there must be a Rarity tab, or some kind of Conversion tab, around here somewhere since I don't see the option to reset it's Mastery level in the Mastery tab. Unless I just missed it somehow?:_

I _really_ wanted to try out that Energy Conversion that Motoyasu and Itsuki used on their own Legendary Weapons to make them stronger. 

"Okay, now where are you hiding my Conversion option?" I demanded playfully of my dear Shield. "I mean to do something with all of these Mastery levels I've just made, and I don't intend to settle for a mere bump in Defense. Come along then my dear Shield, there's a good Shield."

I closed my eyes and waited, holding my breath and praying really hard with all of my strength. There was a Conversion tab, it was _definitely_ there. **Believe it!**

I opened my eyes and the screen seemed to stare smugly back at me, lit up white Conversion tab along the top of the _Mastery_ Screen.

"Yes!" I shouted triumphantly, pumping both fists in the air. "Yaaas Queeen!" 

I clicked on the Conversion tab and a menu screen popped up showing the Mastery that had been leveled in that Shield, along with a button marked Reset on it. I pressed the reset button to reset my Mastery level to zero as Ren had said that he did with his Sword, then clicked the answer yes when another little pop-up screen asked if I was certain that I wanted to reset my Mastery and Convert to Energy Points. I confirmed, and my Mastery level went down to zero. Then there appeared a pop-up menu that informed me that I had received 200 Energy Points! 

I did some quick math in my head. It looked like, for a Common Rarity shield, which maxed out Mastery at 20, the ratio of Energy Points of Mastery Levels was about 10 EP to one Level, or 20 times 10. I wondered if the shields at higher Rarities would yield greater ratios of points to Mastery levels, or if it just stayed the same across the board. Out of curiosity, I checked the Rarity section to see how many EP (short for Energy Points no doubt) it would take to level up a Common shield up to an Uncommon. I whistled a bit to myself when I saw the damage, it cost 1000 EP to level up the lowest shield to its next level!

_:For that price, I sure hope that it offers an increased yield ratio of points!:_ I thought as I clicked through to see what the damage would be for some of the higher tier ratios.

A rare shield would cost me 10,000 EP to get, and an Epic was 50,000 EP. A Legendary Shield cost a whopping 100,000 EP to level up!

_:I still don't see those Rarity and Ability and Item Enchant selection options that Itsuki was talking about,_ : I thought in mild disappointment. _:I'd assumed that they'd show up when I converted my Mastery to Energy Points!:_

"Ahem," I said aloud, very pointedly to my shield. "I had _assumed_ that the same Rarity and Ability increasing abilities that are enjoyed by _other_ Legendary Weapons, that you _definitely do not loose to_ , my Shield, will be _somewhere_ in this Conversion menu."

I closed my eyes so that my shield could take a moment to do what it needed to do, and then opened them. The Conversion menu had rearranged itself. Now, not only was there the reset button on the main screen, a set of tabs had appeared along the far right-hand side that said Rarity, Ability, on the tabs.

"Ah so there it is!" I said in a pleased tone to my shield. "I knew you had it in you. Well done."

It could have been my imagination, but it seemed to me as though the jewel in the center glowed a little bit more brightly for my praise. 

Looking back at my Orange Shield screen after having reset it's Mastery to zero, it now read

**Orange Shield+0: Common 0/20**   
**Ability: None**   
**Mastery Lvl: 0**   
**Equipment Bonus: +.00% Defense**

_:It looks live everything had returned to it's base status,:_ I thought.

Knowing that a common shield at full Mastery reset to zero only got me 200 EP and the purchase of an Uncommon Rarity-level cost 1000 EP, I did not currently have the means to test out the Uncommon Rarity right then to see what the difference was, so I might as well move on and see what _else_ I could do since it looked like everything was true, and everything was permitted.

_:I guess I'll try out Itsuki's Ore and see what this Item Enchant is all about.:_

  
I selected the Item tab from the Conversion Menu and it took me to a screen that had a drop-down menu titled Mystic Ore. There was currently only one type of Mystic Ore in the menu, which was the one I bought from the alchemist-shopkeep. Still, I was curious, so I picked one to test it out and confirmed my selection. A pop-up screen informed me of

**Enchant Successful!  
Item Enchantment lvl 1/20  
Damage Reduced: Air Elemental .01%  
**

_:Seems like a bit of a crap-shoot,:_ I thought warily.

It was entirely dependent on they type of ore or catalyst I used, as well as the shield I selected to use it on. All in all, it felt more like the materials would be better spent elsewhere than on incremental enhancements on a single shield. For improvement on a weapon, Motoyasu's system seemed better.

_:But Itsuki mostly doesn't care about these incremental advantages either. He said that the most important things were a weapons Rarity, which Amaki's system seems to corroborate, and also on increasing his Job level.:_

I paused and thought about it. I would _very_ much like to increase my own Job Level. After all, I was here to do a job, and my exp was reliant entirely upon my ability to defend my teammates, so I would like to be the best tank that this or any other world had ever seen.

_:Plus, if it's like the MMO that **I** am used to, once I find that Job Menu, not only will I be able to increase my base stats, but I can buy Level Badges with my Level Points!:_ I thought brightening with excitement.

I liked the other guy's weapon's upgrading systems just fine, but it would be nice to see something that was familiar to _me_ as well!

_:And Itsuki mentioned a Job Leveling System...:_ I mused to myself, now rather determined that I was going to have **_ALL_ **of the advantages, just to show them.

That was what they got for kicking me to the curb, if you were going to kick a wolf cub you'd better make sure that it stayed down, otherwise, it would come back leading the pack.

_:Self-improvement via spite, that's me, Yuka Sugimoto!:_ I thought with some self-depreciating humor.

"Alright Shield," I said to my Legendary Weapon. "We're not going to loose _anything_ to those other guys. So work your magic and give me a job! Come on Job Tab! Let's see it! Mama needs a new tanking ability!"

I closed my eyes to give my dear, wonderful Shield time to work its magic, knowing that now that I was a _proper_ tank with aggro and Marking and able to fulfill my tanking duties in the _correct_ fashion, that there was **_definitely_ **now a way to level up my job. I opened my eyes, and switched back to my main Status Screen (which would be my character screen in any other MMO) and lo and behold! There was the Job tab, right along the top next to Status, Equip, and Items.

"Alriiiiiight!" I celebrated, polishing my hand over my weapon's green jewel.

"Whose the best Legendary Weapon?" I crooned at it lovingly. " _You're_ the best Legendary weapon!"

I clicked on the Job tab and it took me to a slightly different Status Screen. It was split into five color-coded sections marked Attributes, Equipment, Class Abilities, Craft-Skills, Magic, Leader Badges and Social. It was right where I'd _expected_ to find it, now that I knew what I was looking for.

Curious, I selected the Attributes section of the Job Menu to see what was in it, and it showed a sort of typical character screen section detailing my Stats. Whatever force had made this Menu for my Base Stats had decided to divide them into Tangible and Intangible Attributes (or, put another way, those things that could be easily measured, and those traits that were intrinsic but harder to define). On the Tangible Attributes side I saw Strength, Endurance (which the Help menu gave me to understand was more like a mixture of vitality and defense) Agility and Dexterity. Intangibles were Perception, Intelligence, Charisma and Luck.

_:I'm surprised that **my** luck isn't numbered in the **negative** integers,:_ I thought sourly as I noticed that it was my lowest stat. _:No-way am I leveling **that** up. Knowing my luck, if I did buff up luck, it would only give me **BAD** luck!)_

Next to each attribute (or stat) was a number that said Attribute lvl paired with a progress Bar next to it that said whatever the attribute was, like Strength, and then Gauge. Like Amaki's Proficiency Gauge, once I'd maxed out the Attribute gauge, my Stat Level went up by one, buffing that stat. However, every time I maxed out the gauge, the Gauge Level itself increased. It went from 0/5 to 0/8 to 0/10 to 0/12 and so on, meaning I'd need more of those points to increase my Attributes. I thought at first that, like Amaki's Mastery system, i could just feed it drops, but I soon learned otherwise. The job System ran on a different sort of "currency" than the others did. Unlike Amaki's Mastery/Proficiency Gauge, I could not feed Monster Drops into it to level it up. The Job Menu options could only be increased using something called Level Points.

_:What's a Level Point, and where does **that** come from?:_ I wondered.

A quick consultation with the Help Menu informed me that every time I maxed out the Mastery (and reset) one of my shields, it gave me a certain number of Level Points to be spent on things in the Job Menu. Different Rarities of shield would net me different amounts of LP (level points) every time a max-reset a shield with the Mastery System. Common shields gave 5 LP per reset, Uncommon's gave 10 LP, Rare's gave 15 LP and so on. There were lots and lots of things to spend your LP on, not just Attributes. The Job Menu had Equipment, and Class Abilities, and Craft-Skills, and Leader Badges too!

_:Still! This is **awesome**!: _I celebrated. "I can raise my base stats here and grow even stronger!"

Curious to see what other advantages the Job Menu offered, I looked through the other tabs. In the Equipment tab I could buff my currently equipped gear, like my gloves, boots and breastplate, to its maximum gear efficiency, though I couldn't add on any enchants or change the materials to improve them. I could also Repair my gear there too! If I wanted better buffs on my gear however, I'd have to purchase (or loot) higher-level gear made from better tier metals. I guessed that I couldn't have it all.

Selecting the Class Abilities Menu took me to the screen where I could finally get a look at my Class skills. Finally! As I expected there on the screen marked Class: Tank, with waiting level gauges, were my Tank Skills; Provocation (aggro/generation), Mark (O.O.B), Interrupt, Cover, Buff, Debuff.

_:Odd that I don't see a Healing option,:_ I thought, feeling a bit mystified.

Usually that was part of being a tank, but not always I supposed.

_:Unless it's in the Magic Menu!:_

I feel a small thrill of excitement. I could play with my Class Abilities later, I wanted to get a good look at that Magic Menu! I clicked on the tab and it took me to a color-coded screen laid out in two columns with three rows, each section had one of six colors; red, blue, green, yellow, white and black. Red was next to blue, and Green was next to yellow and white was next to black.

"Kinda like Magic the Gathering, but with an extra color!" I mused.

Each colored section had a button-lozenge on it with an stylized icon and the name of it's Element; Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light and Dark Magic respectively. Clicking on the red Fire button got me a pop-up screen with a header that said Fire and a drop-down Menu labeled "Spells Learned." Clicking on it revealed that it was empty. There were tabs marked Improvement, Spell Grid, and Affinity but they were greyed out and I couldn't click on them, except for Affinity. When I went into that one, I saw that if I wanted to spend the LP on it, I could increase my affinity with fire magic by using the same type of Gauge I used for Attributes in that menu.

_:Something to keep in mind. I'll bet that the higher my affinity with it is, the stronger my spells are.:_

I'd have to revisit that little beauty once I'd finally learned some magic, that was for sure! I ignored the Craft-Skills Menu for now as it was just a place where I could view my proficiency levels with the various skills like Cooking and Sneak and Harvesting that I'd unlocked along the way. I didn't think I would be using LP on them when I could just equip the shield instead for those times I needed to use them.

_:I want to know about those Leader badges!:_ I thought eagerly.

I was expecting something like the MMO I had played the tank role a lot of as a child, where getting Levels meant you could "buy" a Leader Badge that had a more powerful ability to help out your whole team. I clicked on the Leader Badge option and lo and behold! A web-like grid of crystals spinning slowly in place like stars in a nebula, each star with tiny little crystal planets orbiting it, opened up hovering before me. The heart of every large crystal star was a Leader badge. I could select a badge to purchase with LP, and if I wanted, I could then purchase perks and upgrades to that badge once I'd unsealed it (using more LP of course). The badges I could afford to purchase with the LP I had already (20 LP) were lit up brightly, with the other, more powerful badges a dim black-grey.

_:Well these are some **nice** options!:_ I thought cheerfully, as I looked over the lit up ones.

There was also a filter setting, where I could select the badges I wanted to look at based on LP and the Badge-grid would rearrange itself so that those ones were all clustered together. It also worked for why type of LP I was looking for too.

My current options were **Warleader I** , **Sanctuary I** , **Warsong I** , and **Tower of Strength I**. Warleader I offered a 10% bonus to Attack to all allies in range. It had a twenty minute duration and a five hour GCD, meaning that, realistically, I could only use it once per battle. Sanctuary I would emit a Healing Aura to all allies in a ten foot range that would heal 5% of their base health every twenty seconds for five minutes in a continuous regen effect. Warsong I buffed my Provocation range and generation by 50% for a duration of 20 minutes. Each of those badges cost 10 LP to purchase, and their perks and upgrades were extra after that. It was possible, also to purchase different levels of the badge but unsealing them came with different conditions like, I had to fight and defeat so many tier 3 bosses, I had to have so many Rare Shields unlocked, and so on. Still... those were some nice advantages, and they worked independently, meaning that if I had similar skills that I was already using, once I popped that badge ability it would stack with it!

Feeling incredibly smug and pleased with myself for having unlocked so many great advantages I was about to call it a night, when the last tab of my Job Menu caught my eye.

Social.

"Oh... this had _better_ not be what I..." I thought with a sinking, irritated feeling.

It would be closer to say that I punched the tab angrily rather than pressed it gently. The Social menu was divided into Friend List, Chat and Party.

_:Wait... **Party**?:_ I thought in surprise.

It was the first time I had ever seen anything at _all_ related to party _anywhere_ in my menu screen...

I clicked on the button.

Up popped another screen with...

"Are you _kidding_ me?!" I shouted in a mixture of joy and frustration.

"Are you honestly going to tell me it was here the whole time?!" I screamed at my shield.

A tab along the top next to Item and Job fuzzed into existence, as though my Shield were like "oh, are you looking for this?" I stared, feeling suddenly and utterly defeated. Gyousou poked his head into the tent and saw me slump over, strength flowing out of me and I just lay there in a daze.

"Sugimoto," he said in concern. "Are you alright?"

"I'm done with this life," I said, feeling completely exhausted. "I'm done with this world."

"Are you crying?" he said uncertainly.

"These are tears of rage," I replied tonelessly. "My shield is an awesome little shithead."

"I've never seen anyone sound so happy and frustrated at the same time," he remarked humorously.

"Well, I think I've had enough excitement for one day," I said quietly, feeling utterly drained and questioning my own existence. "I'm just going to turn in for the night."

"Sleep well, and try not to let things get to you," Gyousou said kindly.

I crawled into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes, still feeling exhausted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For everyone else who doesn't find the nuts and bolts workings of the mechanics as fascinating and fun as I do, I commend you on making it to the end. For those of you who skipped it, well, I can't really blame you; there's a short summary of what was covered here in the next chapter, which brings us, mostly, back to the action.


	16. Job Security

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Starts to Grind Some Levels

When I woke the next morning, my sword Gyouso was snoring lightly in his own sleeping bag and the sun was just coming up over the horizon. Despite my little bout of frustration with my Legendary Weapon the night before, I was actually very happy right then. I had lots of new advantages to play around with, even more than the other three Heroes combined! Spitefully, this made me feel _very_ pleased with myself and the world for a change. Using Amaki's Mastery-Reset to gain EP, I had an easy way to increase the Rarity of my shields and gain greater advantages. Using Motoyasu's method of (essentially) modding a weapon with ores or monster materials I could strengthen my shields individual qualities to high levels, and add on additional bonuses like status and spirit enchants. Using Itsuki's method I could use Level Points (which, according to the Help Menu, I gained every time I leveled a shield to level cap and reset it back to zero) to purchase and upgrades in my Job menu, which improved not only my Class Abilities to my role as Tank like Provoke and Mark, but also improved my individual Attributes like Strength and Perception, _and_ I could increase my base magic levels in the Magic section of the Job Menu and my base skills with crafts and other miscellaneous skills in the Craft-Skills Menu.

_:With all of these different ways of gaining strength, even with how far behind in grinding levels I am compared to the other three, I should be able to catch up in the limited time I have left, especially if I farm an area with higher-level monsters. I should more than be able to pull my own weight when the Calamity comes. Speaking of which... how much longer on that countdown?:_

I checked the counter on the upper right corner of my Status Menu and noted that we had only three more days left until we would be called to protect the world.

 _:That isn't very long at all. I think I'm going to have to make up the time by narrowing my focus. I should pick out the best of the Shields to start gaining Mastery in, and concentrate on finding monsters from those species to fight so that I can tank them properly and level up my Proficiency, then go and farm the areas where I can find them,:_ I decided. _:I'll talk it over with Gyouso and see what he thinks.:_

I accessed my Cooking Shield and started preparing breakfast from ingredients. 

:I wonder, if I level up my Cooking Shield, will the food grant performance buffs?" I mused to myself.

Since I had my Shield out anyway for the Cooking Screen, which had Ingredients and Recipes and Skills (like Fry or Saute or Roast of course) I tabbed back to its main screen and it worked similar in structure to the Alchemy Shield had, where I used individual actions like fry on an ingredient and there was a mini-game where i tried to do the best work possible on it, and the quality of the meal turned out based on how well I'd done.

 **Blue Egg Shield+12: Common 9/20**  
 **Ability: Cooking**  
 **Mastery lvl: 12**  
 **Equipment Bonus: +.12% Chance to Add Buff on Meal**.

Gyousou joined me for breakfast and complimented me on the fine oatmeal that my Shield had turned out that morning and I told him some of what I had discovered the night before about how I had figured out how my Legendary Shield was improved and modded. When I started getting technical about buffs and bonuses and points his eyes sort of glazed over and he clearly gave up. I couldn't really blame him, this world took a special kind of thinking, that was for certain.

"So we should press on to the mountains north of Ryuut Village," I said decisively. "The reason being that there are stronger enemies there that will level up my proficiency gauge there in the mountains and I can grow our power more efficiently that way. Oh... and by the way..."

I accessed the Party Menu, focused on Gyousou and clicked his status over from Slave to Member: Primary Damage. He looked visibly surprised to see an Invite Screen pop-up in his vision. 

"Just press the yes box with your finger to accept it," I said resignedly. 

Gyousou must have felt something on his skin when I negated his Slave Status for his started and looked down at his chest in surprise before looking at his Invite pop-up.

"Congratulations, you're not my slave anymore."

"Perfect," he said dryly. "Is this what you were so upset about last night?"

"The damn Party Menu wasn't there because I apparently wasn't _looking_ hard enough for it," I said, equally dry. "Stupid world and it's stupid... I give up, it's just making me depressed."

He looked somewhat amused at my predicament and encouraged me to pass it off as an experience to be learned from. 

"Learning sucks. If all of this nonsense keeps up, I'll be wiser than the Oracle of the Jasper Mists Gyoukuyou before I reach twenty."

"There are worse things, you've learned a little empathy. You should be proud," he said.

I frowned at him and turned to help break down the camp. In all honesty I still wasn't certain how far I'd come from the pathetic, sullen me who'd hated the world that bullied her and grasped at power ruthlessly because I'd felt it was my due. There were not many things I liked about this world and sometimes a petty, mean part of me said that I should just not do any fighting for them when the time came because they'd treated me so cruelly.

:But then I'd only be living up to thier expectations of the Evil Shield Hero,: I thought. :And I definitely don't want them to feel smug about being right about me.:

So once again, it looked like I was going to proceed to improve myself through the Power of Spite.

While we began our journey northward into the mountains, backtracking from our journey the day before, Gyousou and I almost crossed paths with a large caravan. The wise swordsman pulled me into cover in a nearby bush and indicated that I should be quiet. I activated my Stealth Shield and we waited until they'd passed us. I scowled as I recognized the caravan... it was a caravan of Slavers, moving their "merchandise" toward the mines. At the front of the caravan, speaking with the shady Slave Dealer who'd kidnapped me once before, I recognized the Sheriff of Lute Village, looking smug and pleased with himself. Suddenly something clicked.

"So **that's** how," I whispered to Gyousou as we snuck out of sight. "That's how that Sheriff was able to wear such fine clothes and have such a much better home and even a manservant as though he were upper crust when all the rest of his humble town was nothing more than average."

"He's hired slaves on the Black Market to work his mines for him," Gyousou said. "And it looks like he can put them all back to work because we just cleared out his mine for him."

I looked unhappily at the long line of skinny, maltreated half-starved hanjuu, some of which were small children as young as seven.

"Should we fight them?" he asked, leaving it up to me.

"I wish I could say yes, but it's been made very very clear to me that I'm on thin ice as it is. That tyrant king's just _itching_ for a chance to get at me. If we attack and get arrested now they'll throw us both in cells and I have a feeling that neither of us would be escaping. I don't know about you, but I desperately want to get back to my world with my safe comfy bed, and my books and my tea... not to mention my parents too, I guess. If they even care, which I doubt. That can't happen unless I fight and defeat those waves of Calamity, and I can't do that from a cell."

"Unfortunate," Gyousou sighed and shook his head. "I would rescue them from bondage if I could, but Heaven's Will does not reach me here, nor will it protect me. It is a fact in any world that all power has it's limits. You are wise to focus on the wider priorities and responsibilities you are entrusted with."

"Besides that, we have no plan," I pointed out. "Even if we freed them, we have no place to put them once we have tehm, and none of them look like they'd make very good fighters."

"Also a valid point, he agreed.

I perked up a bit as a thought occurred to me.

"Who knows, maybe I'll unlock a shield or something that can help with that. As it stands now, though, we had better keep moving."

Along the way through the foothills, the enemies we fought grew tougher, and I unlocked a few new shields. They were nothing remarkable for the most part. I didn't run across any that had any special abilities until we fought and killed some sort of predatory plant creature that unsealed a Trap Shield. It looked a lot like some kind of bear-trap. Once I'd fought a new creature with it, it became a Prison Shield, that formed two large shields with jagged edges that were held tight together by thick vines, trapping the enemy within them. I was definitely gong to level up that Shield. I fought all of my battles using the shields that I had decided to level up my Mastery in; the Air Strike Shield, the Prison Shield, and the Cerberus Shield. The Uncommon Cerberus Shield had the highest starting stats and it came with my one and only offensive Ability, the Double Dog Bite. It didn't do much in the way of damage, but it did do _some_ , however small, and better than that it held a single enemy in place, controlling thier aggro with absolute effectiveness. Air Strike Shield could be used not only to defend and ally that was far away from me, but also to pull hate from an enemy across the battlefield by nailing it with a knock-back blow. 

We were both weary by the end of a long day of almost non-stop creature battles. The youma were tougher there in the mountains, though I was willing to bet that their drops were better because of the rise in difficulty level. I cooked a quick dinner with some of the drops I had set aside for the purpose and then moved on to leveling up my chosen shields starting with my Air Strike Shield, which was the long range translucent shield that materialized briefly out of thin air when I activated it's skill.

**Air Strike Shield+20: 20/20 Common**   
**Ability: Air Strike Shield**   
**Mastery lvl: 20 (max): 26**   
**Equip Bonus: +.20% Heal on Hit per melee damage taken.**   
**Status Enchant: +.20 Dexterity**

I'd had to pause in the fighting periodically during the day to reset it's Mastery as I maxed it out. It was a pain to have to keep an eye on it, but I didn't want to waste proficiency points by continuing to use it once I'd maxed it's Mastery and loose out on those points. I'd noticed that the higher its mastery level was, the more and longer it took to level up its proficiency guage. I was sure there was some kind of math going on behind the scenes but I didn't have time right then to experiment to determine what it was.

I was looking at the EP from the max-resets I'd converted that day when a thought occurred to me. Suppressing a feeling of excitement, I tabbed back to my Shield-tree Menu with the chart of all of my shields, then clicked on a random one that I used fairly frequently for the extra +5 Endurance on the Status Enchant, it wasn't maxed out on Mastery, but it did have 12 Mastery levels. I then tabbed over to Conversion box. It was grey, but there was a little box under it marked Mystic Ore. With a feeling of suspense I pulled a piece of Itsuki's Mystic Ore from my pack and fed it into the box, and the conversion menu lit up, making it possible for me to reset Mastery levels even when the Mastery was not maxed out! converted all of it's Mastery Levels to EP. When I clicked back to my Air Strike Shield, I found that the EP from the other Shield was there along with the EP from that one. I could make them carry over!

 _:Hot damn!:_ I thought in celebration. _:This is great! Now I don't have to worry about only using shields that I want to level. I can level whatever shield I want and just reset-convert and put all the EP into the shields I want to improve!:_

I quickly clicked through all of my lesser shields, the ones that didn't offer any useful bonuses or abilities, and reset their Mastery, watching my pool of EP grow by leaps and bounds. I could now afford to increase the Rarity of my favorite shields! 

_:Which one should I increase to Uncommon for 1000 EP first?:_ I mused to myself.

A thousand EP was three and a half max-resets with a common-level shield.

_:Eh, we'll go for the one that gives me a little bit of distance. Let's do Air Strike Shield.:_

When I increased the Rarity of my Air Strike Shield I noticed a few things had changed about it. For starters all of my bonuses, like the Equpment Bonus and the Status Enchant increased tenfold (which basically meant that I could move the decimal point over one space). Second, I could now choose a second Ability for that shield from a list of options provided to me on the Shield Screen and spend a certain number of EP to unlock it. Some Abilities were more costly than others but consequently offered greater advantages. 

_:I guess it really pays to level up that Rarity,:_ I thought. _:Higher tier shields really are better!:_

By the time I had finished that night I had leveled up my Air Strike Shield and my Trap Shield, but didn't have enough EP to level up my Prison Shield. I wanted to see what kind of bonuses a Rare-level shield would get me but the only Uncommon-level shield I had was the Cerberus Shield. Increasing an Uncommon to a Rare cost 5000 EP! 

:Wait... hang on...: I thought, noticing something when I clicked over to the Cerberus Shield.

**Cerberus Shield +33: Uncommon 1/40**   
**Ability: Double Dog Bite**   
**Mastery Lvl: 33**   
**Equip Bonus: +3.3% Melee Defense**   
**Status Enchant: +3.3 Heal on Hit when Tower of Strength is Active.**

The Mastery Levels had doubled, as had the amount of proficiency it took to fill the Proficiency Gauge. Playing another hunch, I tabbed into the conversion screen and hit the proficiency guage. Using a large portion of the higher-level monster drops I'd farmed from all the mobs we'd fought in the mountains that day, I manually increased the guage so that it ticked my Mastery levels over. I kept going until I'd maxed out the Mastery at forty, then hit reset to reset it's mastery to zero.

_:Alright! Just as I thought!:_

The amount of EP that I could farm from an Uncommon shield was more than what I got fro reseting the Mastery in a comon shield. I got 800 EP from an Uncommon.

_:Which makes it...:_

I did some quick math in my head.

_:20 EP per 1 level of Mastery with an Uncommon, compared to only 10 EP per 1 Level of Mastery from a Common shield. That's double! And there's more levels of Mastery to Convert.:_

And even if I didn't max out the Mastery, thanks to Itsuki's Mystic Ore, I could still farm an Uncommon shield for a greater rate of return.

 _:I'll bet that the proficiency gauge levels up slower though,:_ I thought to myself. _:Still, it is a greater return no matter how you look at it.:_

:I'd be using my Uncommon Shields and getting more EP to raise my other shields with from the next two days!


	17. Revelations

I slept well that night, and Gyousou and I woke the next morning to do it all again. We'd settled into a pretty good routine working together as I had impressed upon him _emphatically_ the very very great importance of that cardinal rule of the party (aside of do not EVER split the party) **The Tank Shalt Go-eth First!** Once Gyousou had come to understand how taking and roles worked things went much more smoothly. I could tell that he still thought it was weird, but that was just how things worked there in this world. We fought our way more deeply into the mountains, fighting tougher and tougher youma as we went. I was getting some pretty good drops to geed my beast of a shield, so i was pretty happy all things considered. I couldn't wait to do my EP conversion for the night and see what I got!

By the end of that day however, I was really really beginning to smell badly in need of a wash. So, after warning Gyousou not to follow me, I took my only other change of clothes with me, along with my bucket of bathing articles, and went to find the lake that was near our camp for that evening. The moon was high and nearly full that night... and the water was absolutely frigid that high up in the mountains! I'd bathed in some cold streams before, but that one had to be the coldest I'd ever tried to bathe in. I washed quickly but thoroughly in the moonlight. So concentrated was I on not breaking a tooth by chattering them too hard I missed the sound of approaching footsteps.

"Well, well, lookee _here_ boys!" an unfamiliar voice called out.

I froze and turned to look over my shoulder, back at the shoreline. There were three scruffy-looking older men in rough, patched clothes, with weapons that were badly taken care of.

"Looks like we've found a poor lost little lamb, all trussed up an' waiting for us," one of the other three remarked.

I didn't waste any time. I took a deep breath and let out the loudest, shrillest shriek I had ever screamed in my life. Then, instead of trying to fight I changed shield to Trap Shield, caught all three of them in a bear trap to immobilize them, and ran along at a diagonal path along the shore towards my camp. The mountain bandits were making a ruckus in the background as I fled to escape them, and I'd never been so glad to see anything in all of my life as I was glad to see Gyousou, sword in hand, rushing toward the sound of my scream. He stopped short however when he saw me, eyes widened in shock and disbelief. I looked down. Yep, naked. I reflexively crossed my hands over top my breasts and ducked into the water, modesty momentarily over-coming my instinct to flee.

"Hey! Don't look!" I said, offended.

"You're... you're a.." he said, taken aback.

The Trap Shield wore off and I looked back over my shoulder, reflexively changing Shield and knocking them back with an Air Strike Shield, but then loosing my footing on the slippery rocks of the lake bed and falling all the way into the water over my head before spluttering up to the surface. Gyousou, seeing their intent with me, had already finished two of them off and was working toward the third who was fleeing in terror. 

I made my way to the shore while his back was turned and wrapped my travel cloak around me. I shivered, as much from reaction-fear as being genuinely cold from the freezing temperature of the water. 

"I, er, I chased him off," he said, sounding suddenly awkward when he returned. "The other two... won't bother anyone."

I said nothing about that. When it came to mountain bandits and the sorts of men who clearly planned to rape women bathing in a lake, no-one generally tended to wring their hands over their fates. Certainly I did not plan to.

"Thank-you," I said now feeling just as awkward. 

We walked back to camp in silence, and he very carefully looked away and let me have the tent to change into my clean clothes. I emerged a moment later and started on dinner, using the menu in my shield to assemble recipes from the stock we had on hand. Gyousou eventually got over his awkwardness, cleared his throat, and said

"So you are _female_ then. You might have mentioned this sooner. We have been traveling improperly for weeks now."

I shrugged uncomfortably.

"I didn't want to get into it," I muttered, feeling awkward. " At first, I wasn't sure if you were the kind of man who'd try to grope or molest a girl since I barely knew you, so I didn't say anything. Then after I was sure you wouldn't try anything with me if you knew the truth, it just seemed like it'd be _weird_ to bring it up. I kinda liked not being treated like just a _girl_ all the time."

"I don't follow you," he said blankly.

"Y'know," I said. "Like I'm fragile, and need to be protected, and have my hand held over every little thing, and like I can't do anything hard. At least, that usually how girls are raised to be on my world."

Gyousou seemed to mull this over for a moment then looked at me in reproof.

"You seem to have spent time on my home-world," he said disapprovingly. "Surely you've noticed that the gender differences on my world are not quite the all-consuming chasm they seem to be here."

"Yeah, and this world is a _bastion_ of gender equality compared to _mine_ ," I said dryly. 

After all, the women adventurers here might wear pretty woman-style armor, but it didn't look like they were looked down on or considered any less an adventurer than the men were just because they were women.

"I would not have treated you delicately because you happen to be a woman, one of my finest and most trusted generals is a woman," Gyousou said, patiently. "I have served with, and under, many capable women. Being a woman does not make you incapable, _incompetence_ does."

I smiled a bit at that. 

"I see you're right," I agreed. "And I'm sorry, then, that I didn't trust you with my little secret sooner. I've learned a lot of harsh lessons, and trust doesn't come easy... but you've earned it. I'll be more open with you from here on in. After all, we're partners now, right?"

Gyousou gave me a small smile and said

"So I now believe I see what your irrefutable proof of your innocence is. The likelihood that you had managed to commit the crime you have been accused of is vanishingly likely. I wonder why it is, then, that the king of this Kingdom went to so much trouble to summon you into the world only to deliberately treat you badly."

"I don't get it either," I said. "But it seems to me that everyone is like that here, and not just because I'm a criminal. The clergy, when I visited thier church to see about learning how to read, treated me terribly as well and it felt to me almost as if they felt hostile toward me, like there was something wrong with my very existence. It's puzzling. I don't get why they even call me a hero when they clearly don't want me around."

"We should keep an eye out for trouble," he said, changing the subject. "I assume you're going to spend the evening working on your Shield as you have been for the last few times we've camped."

"I was also hoping to make some more progress with reading these books," I said morosely, picking up my beginners Magic Primer. 

I'd pretty much mastered how to decipher the letters of this world and I could sound out the words enough to where my shield-given translation function in my mind kicked in, however, I was having some trouble sorting out the grammar and syntax. The alchemy book, reliant as it was on math rather than magical theory, was much easier to read than the magic books... but I really wanted to be able to use magic spells! 

I hurriedly did my now-nightly tasks on my shield screen converting Mastery to EP and even trying out some tempering to strengthen my favorite shields for the battles to come. Once that task was over with, I started studying. I didn't get very far, and I kept having to stop and try to ask Gyousou what he heard when I said a certain string of words. He seemed to have some sort of built-in universal translator that was better than mine. He was very helpful so I got farther that night than I had the last few evenings I'd tried to parse out the language of the world without an instructor. Once I'd had enough studying, I went back to my job screen and looked at the options in my Leader Badge's menu, discussing each of the options with him, explaining what they meant to him, and then debating which would be the more useful in a battle situation.

I made my first Leader Badge purchase that evening, after much debate back and forth. I decided to purchase the "Warleader I" badge for 15 LP, as well as the "Sanctuary I" for another 15 badge for a boost in Party Healing since I didn't have any Healing Magic learned yet. I also purchased a "Warsong I" badge for yet another 15 that buffed the main stats of all allies within a fifty foot radius by 5% when active in battle. Those set me back by 45 LP but a Common shield gave 5 LP every time I reset the Mastery of it, and an Uncommon gave 10. Considering that I'd max-reset several times in the last two days, i had a respectable number of LP to spend, though, the badges were expensive so i still had to choose wisely. 

_:I should use the remainder of my LP to level up some of my Attributes and Class Abilities!:_

I hadn't fought in a Wave yet, so I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. From what I'd gathered however, Cataclysm Waves were like zerg-fests, where whole huge groups of youma flooded into the world through rifts, and the Heroes had to fight and defeat a Main Boss in order to seal up the rift. 

_:If that is the case, then the battle we're going into will probably be Melee,:_ I thought to myself. _:So I suppose upping my ability to control the field and tank the mobs should really come before anything else.:_

I should focus my purchases on improving those Job Skills that would increase the survivability of my party, rather than leveling up things that would only help me. Sure I could bump up my Endurance to make myself harder to kill, but if I couldn't keep the mobs off my party and my fighters were over-run then there would be no way to kill off the mobs and it would be a wipe for sure eventually. A good tank who did their work well, took these kinds of things into consideration.

 _:Sadly for me, I'm a tank, the most party-oriented Role of them all,:_ I thought a little bit ruefully. _:Those guys can afford to spend their points on things that are going to help only themselves, but I always need to be conscious that I'm the one who leads the party, and that my main function is to make sure we all make it through okay.:_

I supposed that offensive Weapon-wielders and primary DD's could afford to be more selfish.


	18. Preparation is Half the Battle

On our third day,Gyousou and I fought our way down from the mountains and back toward civilization. I harvested all the plants I could along the way and took every opportunity to fight as many mobs as I could. We noticed a marked improvement in how easy it was to fight. My taunting ailities rarely ever missed now, even with multiple enemies and even when they were further away. Before, if I wanted to pull hate, I had to rush at the enemies and slam them all in the face with my sheilds, now I could just slap my shileds and Shout at them, dovakin-style and they'd come rushing right over. Once they were in range, i just slapped them with my shield when it started looking like they weren't paying attention to me anymore, and Gyousou painted the wilderness red with thier blood.

We also tested out the new Leader Badges I'd bought and were pleased to note that it payed very noticeable dividends. That Sanctuary healing aura was a boon for us both, saving us from needig to hit the bottle with greater frequency. Gyousou cleaned up mobs even faster with the added attack bonus from Warleader. In all, it was a good day for us. We made excellent progress back to civilization despite my insistence on stopping to harvest plants and kill monsters. My buffs had made us efficient killing machines.

"Oh. My. God..." I breathed in wonder, eyes going wide as saucers when I saw what waited us at the edge of Ryuut Village.

A sudden rush of happiness and excitement filled me at the sight of three bright yellow ostrich-shaped beauties the size of large ponies, one of which was actually hooked to a cart! So cute! My cup of Fnal-fantasy-nerd happiness overflowed.

"Yuka," Gyousou said, looking over at me in concern. "Your face of flushed bright red, are you alright."

"Cho," I breathed in a sigh, breathless with moe.

"Cho?" he questioned. 

"Cho-co-bo..." I slapped my cheeks to get a hold of myself. 

"It's a chocobo!" I screamed excitedly, rushing over to pet the little dream come true.

The bright, fluffy darlings were every bit as soft and adorable as i had ever dreamed they would be! I wanted to ride one, sooo badly!

"Halt, you there!" a nearby soldier, dressed in the livery of the Village Guard said in a commanding voice. 

I looked over at him, eyes wide and pleading.

"He's so fluffy, I'm gonna die," I announced. "Soooo fluffyyyy!"

Gyousou couldn;t restrain a snort of laughter. He just didn't understand, clearly. 

"Would you like to ride one?" Gyousou asked in a tne like a kindly uncle. 

I looked over at him with a look I normally reserved for the saviors of small kittens.

"Yes," I said.

"There's a saddlery where you can rent the beasts, that are called Filorials, by the way, to ride between towns if you wish."

I gently led me through the town gate and I excitedly told over some of my sivers to rent birds that would take us directly to the main city. We were presented with two bright yellow beauties, already saddled and ready to go. I called mine Charlie. Gyousou showed me how to mount up and use the whistle to signal when I was ready to move out.

I couldn't restrain a high-pitched inarticulate noise of happiness and excitement as I pulled myself into the saddle, burying my hands into its fluffy feathers. I was on a chocobo (or whatever they wanted to call it, but it was a chocobo)! I was going to get to ride a real chocobo. This was really happening. This was the best day of my life!

Gyousou took one look over at me and promptly burst out into genuine laughter.

"I think this may be the happiest I have ever seen anyone, much less you, look about anything in all of my life," he said. 

I was still speechless with moe so he blew on the whistle and we set out. The chocobo, or Filorial, moved with astonishing speed, like really it had to be going much faster than a horse could run and it felt amazing. I had once ridden on the back of a dragon-bird creature in the other world, and for me, riding on the back of a chocobo (or whatever) beat it hands down. The wind in my hair, the sun on my skin, the feel of riding along on a chocobo was like a dream. I was disappointed when, an hour or so later, I could see the city in the distance and knew that not only was I approaching the end of my wonderful chocobo ride, I would also need to put up with the scorn and derision of all of the assholes in town also. I detirminedly put it from my mind, resolved that I was going to enjoy every moment of it. 

We dismounted at the city gate, since it seemed that animals were not allowed inside the city with only few exceptions. I suppose it must have kept down on waste in a place that did not appear to have a working sewer system. 

"You look so sad," Gyousou remarked, sounding warmly amused. "Don;t worry, you can have another ride on a Filorial another time."

I was about to follow the flow of people, most of them wearing armor and eqquipped for war (probably adventurers awaiting thier chance to fight in the battle of the Calamity), entering the city when one of the guards called out.

"Halt there!"

"What now?" I wondered in annoyance, my previous good mood souring as it looked like I was going to be treated to yet more of this kingdom's awful hospitality.

"Let's see your papers," the guard said, tightening his grip on his weapon and looking a challenge at me. 

His partner was smirking next to him. I sighed, rolling my eyes, and got out my diplomatic immunity badge and presented it to him. He examined it minutely, even though it was probably obvious to him who I was by my Legendary Shield. 

"Declare your goods," he said next.

"What?" I demanded.

"Anyone stopped for search before entering the city must be ready to provde a full manifest of all goods entering the city or be prepared for a search," he said in a mockingly bored tone.

"Really?" I said flatly. 

I had a Calamity to fight, and I had a few errands I needed to run before I got to the min event.

"Fine," I said, not wanting to go to the bother of getting arrested like I had the last time. 

I turned out my bag, and dumped it on his table, feeling a little bit of malicious delight at the sight of some of the less savory items that I claimed fro demon drops (zombie flesh and creatures eyeballs and such) making a mess all over his table. 

"Your friend too," the guard prompted, scowling at me.

Gyousou frowned, but did as he'd bid and turned out his travel bag as well. They rudely pawed through our things, inspecting each and every item minutely and wasting our time by questioning where we had gotten each one. It was two hours later before they decided to release us and by then my former good mood was utterly destroyed and I felt very much like throttling someone. I stomped angrilly through teh gates and continued on our way, not even the mid afternon sun could cheer me up.

"Excuse me," a young woman's voice called out to me as we were walking on our way to the church.

Gyousou and I paused, turning to look over at the one who called to us. Or in my case, glare at teh person putting yet another delay in my path. It was a young woman, dressed all in basic battle-gear. She had two round raccoon ears up on her head and a round fluffy tail poking out of the back of her armor. She carried a basic sword much like Gyousou's. There was something vaguely familiar about her.

"You're the Hero of the Sheild, right?" the young woman asked.

"What's it to you?" I demanded, suspiciously, wary that she might be hiding a rock she intended to throw at me. "If you're here to pick a fight with me, I don't have time for you. I have to go fight in your stupid calamity."

"I've come to ask you to please let me join your party!"

She actually bowed low when she made her request. I looked suspiciously at her. Why was she being so helpful? And what was with this? I didn't trust it, not at all. I was about to continue on my way without another word when Gyousou put a hand on my shouder, stopping me.

"She's made a humble request," he said to me in a chiding tone. "You should at least answer it. You should also take her up on it."

"No way," I said flatly. "I've already learned that that's not a good idea. These people hate me. She probably just wants to join so she can make trouble for me during the battle."

"Please, I want to fight!" she said desperately. "I want to fight by your side, Shield Hero!" 

I looked at her, non-plussed. 

"I've heard that one before," I said skeptically, memories of my unexpected betrayal burning from the back of my mind. "So the other Heroes won't take you on then, eh? Not even that womanizing Motoyasu? You're pretty enough, why not go bother him? He'll take on anyhing in a skirt."

I was cuffed upside the head sharply.

"Mind your manners and don't be a brat!" Gyousou said sharply.

I was surprised to suddenly feel not only rebuked but contrite and cowed as well. it was unexpected. I scowled defensively at him anyway, my main response when faced with the likelihood of having to make an apology. Still, I could not help that my tone was changed when I said

"I'm not looking for party members. Good day."

"Wait, please! Shield Hero, it's me!"

I looked back at her.

"Me who?" I asked, certain I'd never seen her before.

"It's me, Raphtalia. I'm the little racoon-girl you saved from slavery. You gave me medicine and found a home for me with the kindly shop owner. I owe you a debt, please let me repay it."

I stopped and reconsidered. A random stranger asking to join my party was suspicious. A woman with a life-debt however... that put a different complexion on things. It was possible that she was being sincere.

"How is it you, then?" I asked in confusion. "That child was ten if she was a day."

"Halflings are differnt," Raphtalia explained. "We age to reflect our level, when we wish to. Ive trained really hard this last week to attain a level that won't be looked down on by you. I want to fight at your side, Shield Hero."

I exchanged a glance with Gyousou.

"Is this true?" I asked him.

"I don't know," he replied. "I've been in this world, but like you, I know little of how it works. I've mostly been stuck in the slave pens. She does look like the girl-child we rescued. Either way, she's another sword-arm and with just you and me, no matter how many advantages you have, we can't afford to turn away an extra fighter."

"Fine," I huffed. "But you join under the same terms Gyousou did for his trial period. I put a slave mark on you until I know I can trust that you won;t betray me. Cross me, and you'll regret it, got me?"

Gyousou looked at me in mingled exasperation, disappointment and horrified resignation. I'd come a long ways it seemed, but not quite far enough. I ignored him and waited for Raphtalia's answer.

"A-Alright," she said with understandabe reluctance. 

I switched to my Slave-maker Shield and pressed the center of my buckler to the center of her chest leaving behing a black, fancy-looking diagram that glowed darkly. A screen popped up for me to adjust her slave settings and I did. Gyousou looked at me with heavy disapproval and I willfully ignored it. 

"There you are," I said. "Welcome to the party."

Strangely enough, she looked happy about it.

"Thank you Lord Sugimoto! I won't let you down!"

"It's just Sugimoto," I said brusquely, pushing away memories of my first days with Mein. "None of that Lord business. We're part of the same side. Gyousou will acqquaint you with how we opperate."


	19. To Punch a Nun (it's not like she didn't deserve it!)

I left our new team-mate to Gyousou to train in proper battle operations and wandered off ahead. Gyousou gave me a very eloquent look that told me we would be _discussing_ my behavior in depth later, and that I probably was _not_ much going to like what he had to say to me. My heart did shrink up a little. His opinion and approval of me had come to mean a lot more than it should to me. 

We passed by Oyaji's Weapon's Shop and we still had some time to go before we needed to report to the Church in the center of the town for us Four Heroes and our parties to be transported to fight off the wave of Calamity.

"Lad!" the old man greeted me with every evidence of happiness, then he looked past me and saw my new companion and looked both dismayed and resigned. 

"So it looks like you've managed it," he said to Raphtalia.

"Yes!" she said with an emphatic, happy nod. 

"I suppose I can't stop you, so I'll have to wish you well," he said to her, then turned his head to look at me. "Lad, you make sure you take care of her."

"I'm the tank," I said shortly. "That's my job, after all."

His brow furrowed in puzzlement but he seemed to accept it, even if he didn't understand my terminology. 

"If we are to enter a major battle," Gyousou said. "We should have our armor inspected and repaired."

I was about to argue that I had a high enough level of defense on my own that it would probably be pointless, but then I paused. _My_ armor might be irrelevant, but _Gyousou's_ was not, and it was in pretty bad shape after the beating it had taken while I figured out how to tank properly. It would probably not be a bad thing to get it fixed before we faced the Wave. Also, it might not be a bad idea to show up to the party _not_ looking like a hobo who slept in the woods. 

"You should choose a new weapon, as it would be redundant to have both you _and_ the new girl using a sword and shield," I said instead as I examined a second-hand chainmail shirt and coif. "Can you use a two-handed sword, Gyousou? I could use a damage dealer able to land high damage."

Gyousou picked up a longsword that was nearly as long as he was tall and swung it experimentally, looking like he certainly knew what he was about with it. He nodded, pleased and then proceeded to test out other similar swords on the same rack, seeking the best fit. I also indicated that he should pick out something to replace his worn armor as well.

"Lord Sugimoto should wear this!" Raphtalia said cheerfully, holding up a fancy-looking poncy suit of armor that would be certain to make me look silly in it. 

"I, er, think that I'm not going to be able to afford that," I said.

Then I got an idea. I had harvested several exotic youma parts that my shield said could be used to make armor by a skilled armorer. 

"Oyaji," I said, walking up to the counter and pulling out the back of parts I'd had the notion of selling. "Is there any way you could make up some armor with this?"

I dumped the bag out on his counter and his eyes widened.

"It's been a while since I've seen some of these lad. Where did you go hunting, all the way at the top of the northern mountains?"

"Just about," I said. 

The enemies had gotten a lot more challenging the further into the mountains we'd gotten, and I'd been able to feed me shield quite a lot thanks to that.

"I can come up with something, but it'll take me a bit," he said, looking like a man who enjoyed a challenge. "I don't think I could have it done by the end of the day, though."

"That's fine," I said agreeably. "I'll come back and pick it up in a few days or so. I'll just take this chainmail shirt here for now."

Oyaji and I haggled over prices in an almost friendly manner. Faffing about looking for some extra health potions to augment our supplies took up most of the remaining time on my Dragon Hourglass counter, so when we'd finished there, I put on my new chainmail and we hurried on to the church with the old man's well wishes at our backs. 

When I arrived a the door, that crusty old bitch from the last time I'd come to the church was standing guard over the door like some sort of hoary old dragon. 

"Let us pass," I said bluntly. "Or we're going to be late for the party."

"Trash like you has no place alongside the three Saint Heroes," she informed us.

I opened my mouth to tell her that I had a Calamity to fight and she should just shove off when Gyousou, seeing my foul mood only growing fouler, stepped up to the horrible old bat and in the politest tones said

"We have been summoned here to fight just the same as the others. There is no need to treat the Shield Hero any differently. It surprises me that a member of the clergy would show such blatant discrimination. Does not the god who watches over this world have Heavens Law in place to prevent such behavior?"

I refrained from shaking his world view by informing him that most worlds were not like his and did not have kindly-inclined, busybody Gods making rules and systems to ensure that their people were treated well and fairly.

"It is not discrimination when it's that heretical Shield Hero, he has no place among decent, law-abiding folk. He should be locked away for the safety of everyone!" the irritating old woman insisted.

"Like he said, _nun_ ," I said in irritation. "We're here on Hero business. Its not your place to interfere, no matter how much you hate me. Step aside and let me pass."

The older woman glared with blatant hatred at me, as if my existence was a crime somehow, and called out

"Guards! Throw that trash out of the sanctity of our church!"

The annex and hallway was soon filled up with burly and righteous-looking church guards, all pointing swords or spears at me. That was fine I could take them all on.

"I don't have time for this," I muttered. 

I changed shield to my leveled up Cerberus Shield and unleashed its new ability that I'd unlocked.

"Howl! Cerberus!" I commanded it.

The two heads that stuck out of the surface of the shield both let out a deep and resounding wolf-howl in unison, which created a sound-wave that had a stun effect on any enemy target in range. I'd selected that awful old woman and all of the guards in front of me as enemies. When they fell sideways in a faint I stepped over her body, picking my way through the crowd of unconscious guards and called "come on!"over my shoulder.

"Keep this up, and you really _are_ going to turn out to be as bad as everyone thinks you are!" Gyousou snapped at me as he pulled the church biddy to the side and made her comfortable.

I suppressed a pang of guilt and continued on my way. Gyousou caught up with me, and Raphtalia looked noticeably uncertain. It probably wasn't every day that she saw her precious hero assault an old nun. It seemed that my reputation just got worse and worse. Sadly, this one was definitely all on me.

"Well, if it isn't the Great Criminal, Mi'lord Hero of the Shield!" a familiar voice echoed resoundingly through the marble-lined room.

Motoyasu stood there, surrounded by fangirls and preening like a peacock at his great and non-existent wit. Mein was there too, and I glared darkly at her. One of these days I was going to find a way to settle my score with her. Preferably by killing her.

"Oh great," I muttered. "It figures he'd be the first one I'd meet."

For once Gyousou did not offer any words of encouragement, and I dispiritedly remembered that I was on his bad list that day. It hurt more than I'd expected.

"Why _hello_ Motoyasu," I replied in the same saccharine tones I'd learned to use with all of the other kids who'd bullied me. 

I pulled out my most condescending demeanor, mocking him with a superior and haughty voice, treating him like an idiot.

"You'll have to _forgive_ me for not recognizing you right away, my dear," I said oh-so-sweetly. "With all that posturing and preening and all of those useless fangirls you have, I mistakenly thought I'd walked into some sort of host club at first. Ah, but then I remembered, no-one in their right minds would pay to hang out with you... sadly the case for this being, that they simply cannot fit both themselves _and_ your own oversized ego in the same room at the same time."

I preened a little bit inwardly as my zinger hit home and he scowled at me.

"Doesn't change the fact that you're a damn rapist," he snapped.

"The veracity of my crime," I said with even greater superior condescension in my tone. "Is _not_ a fact. The only fact here is that your little _friend_ over there is a liar."

"The king himself condemned you," Mein said. "And I will not be called a liar!"

"You take those words back!" Motoyasu snapped in defense of the little bitch. 

"I'll take them back when they stop being true!" I snapped back in my normal, angry tone.

"Oh knock it off you two," Ren said, appearing from a side alcove off the main room. "We don't have time for this. The Calamity is almost here."

Yeah," Motoyasu sneered at me. "And then we'll see who the _true_ Hero is, and who's the useless _turtle_ that can only sit back and defend itself while me and the _real_ heroes win the day!"

"Hey _real hero_ ," I said dryly. "Don't forget to watch your back, or that bitch over there will put a knife in it for you. Just a friendly word of advice."

The hourglass began to count down in earnest, leaving us only a little more than a minute left to go. Itsuki and his own party drifted in from another alcove off to the side.

"Hey," he said shortly.

"Hey," I replied in the same tone.

Neither of us felt like we were friends, but niether of us was actually interested in being enemies. That was good enough for me right then.


	20. Second Wave

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroes Fight the Wave of Calamity

The hourglass finished its countdown and the world faded to white, just as it had when I'd first been summoned there. When the white-screen passed the details of te world slowly coaleced around me, and saw Gyousou and Raphtalia standing nearby me, and the other heroes and thier party members, spread out on the top of a nearby hill. There was a very strange noise in the air, a groaning noise as though the air was like a board moaning under the weight f too great a force of stress put on with it. The air in front of me suddenly let out a tremendous crack! amd the sky shattered, looking like the inside of a snowglobe that had just been broken open.

"Whoa!" I exclaimed. "It's like the world's been broken!"

The edges of the rift in the sky glowed with brilliant red malevolence, causing the air around us to turn red. Hundreds upon hundreds of demons poured out of the rift. Covering the ground before us like a carpet of ants.

"Alright!" Motoyasu shouted triumphantly. "Here they come!"

I looked over at him in shock. Just what the hell did he think this was?! Idiot! 

"Milord Sugimoto!" Raphtalia shouted, pointing over to an outcropping that looked familiar to me. 

Past a hilly vale with scattered trees was the crudely fortified village of Lute. I recognized it easily. We might have been tossed out by their corrupt Sheriff, but the rest of the town had treated me decently. 

"They won't have had enough time to evacuate!" Gyousou said, confirming my worst suspicions.

"Hey guys! Wait up!" I shouted to the other Heroes.

They were heroes after all, saving people was what they did. Surely they'd help.

"That village is closer than we are to the source of that rift!" Raphtalia exclaimed in horror. "They'll get hit with it first!"

"Hey!" I shouted at the backs of the so-called Heroes. "We have to protect the village! The people there are in danger!"

I shouted at thier backs as they rushed forward to fight the source of the rifts. Either they hadn't heard me or they were deliberately ignoring me.

"Dammit! Listen to me!" I shouted, but they rushed ahead without looking back.

Probably all those idiots were thinking of was the glory and rewards they'd get when they fought some high-level demon. The people of this world were really nothing more than NPC's to them. Of no more importance than a line of code. They just didn't care that people were going to get hurt.

"Damned kids," I growled to myself.

"No good," Gyousou said brusquely in silent agreement.

"They'll probably get all the credit for this," I muttered. "But we can't just do nothing. Let's go!"

I turned on my heel and started off to go and protect Ryuut Village with my two comrades at my side.

"Raphtalia," I called over my shoulder.

"Yes?" she asked, sounding nervous about being called on.

"I know you're just a noob and I should have thought of that sooner. Sorry I was acting like a dick earlier. I had a lot on my mind. Did Gyousou tell you how we wage battle?"

"Yes, Milord!" she said. "I am never to go first, and I am to attack from the flanks only these enemies who look at you with red eyes. I am to also attack the enemies in the order that you mark them."

"Good," I nodded once firmly. "Add to that that if I give you an order, you follow it immediately and without question. Follow your Older Brother, and we'll get you through this."

With that, our mad dash to the borders of the village and around to where the demons from the rift were massing to attack was over. I managed to get in range just in time to see the leading edge of the demon-wave reach the first of the few citizens manning the field in a futile effort to stave off the attack long enough for the inhabitants to escape.

"Air Strike Shield!" I shouted, intercepting the demon before it could hit the poorly armed villager. 

I activated my war-badges and pushed my taunt function out to the limit of its range, attracting all of the mobs over to me and away from the village. They rushed at me. I activated my Cerberus Shield, knowing that that was the one that gave me the most advantage in melee. and I kept their aggro while Gyousou led Raphtalia around to their flanks and showed her her business. She was a thankfully quick learner, and her whippy little fencing sword must have had an advantage in critical hits because she mopped them up with surprising efficiency. 

Gyousou had switched to a large, heavy two-hander and was going through the crowd like a whirlwind, just reaping demons like a natural disaster. I redoubled my efforts, chugged potions when I needed them, and kept up my taunts. Things were going okay!!

That was, of course, when the first of the mini-bosses showed up. He was a big fellow, a towering ten feet tall and massive Skeleton Lord, surrounded by little demon bone-clones. I taunted to draw his attention on me, chugged a potion and danced lightly back on my feet when he swung downward with his enormous bone cleaver, which caused a shockwave that knocked me off my feet. I activated the Healing aura from Sanctuary to top off my energy and signaled Gyousou and Raphtalia in for a secret huddle.

"Alright," I said. "The village evac is underway, but there's still a lot of people who haven't made it out yet. If the big one and his horde make it to that wooden palisade, we can kiss this village goodbye cuz they'll bash right through it and there won't be any fortifications to mount a defense from."

My party nodded in agreement, having likely pieced it together for themselves.

"Gyousou," I turned to him. "I want you and Raphtalia to work with the City Guard and what few Knights and Adventurers are her to help with the defense. Your job will be to keep the demons that slip through once I'm done making this pull away from the walls as best you can. Keep the village safe. I'll juggle the bulk of the horde for as long as I can and keep them off you."

They both look like they would have argued.

"Your party leader has spoken. Get it done!" 

I rushed off to throw myself into the middle of the melee, knowing that my single-use, large-area radius Taunt Skill was going to be the most effective and pull the most mobs only if I was in the center of the trouble. My party ran back to help the stragglers pull together and mount and effective defense while the remainder of the guard evacuated the villagers to safety in the mines. 

"Hey! Over here!" I cried, activating my skill Mass Taunt. 

Every demon within a twenty-five foot radius of me immediately went red-eyed and turned my way, closing in for an attack, including the Skeleton Lord and all of his mobs. 

"Air Strike Shield!" I said, activating the skill and using my boosted agility to use the temporary phantom shield as a stepping stone, leaping outwards to escape the center of attention. 

I picked a direction that looked like it led to open ground and started running, calling out taunts over my shoulder to keep the mob with me. It looked like something from an anime as an avalanche of demons started chasing after me while I called insults at them and told them about how their mothers dressed them funny. I used Cerberus to stun any that came in range, let a few of them fight me before I managed to get back ahead of them. I juggled the majority of the mob and kept its attention on me, looking back to see if the village had been fully evacuated yet and if there was any hope of a rescue in my near future.

I was managing to stay just out of striking range, keeping their hate up by tossing out regular taunts and was actually starting to feel pretty good about my chances of making this desperate plan a success. Gyousou and the new girl weren't here yet to help winnow thier numbers, but I was doing okay despite that. Maybe this could work! Then I looked over my shoulder to a field off to the left of me. There was another horde on an intercept path... because why wouldn't there be?

 _:I can't even feel mad about it, that's just what I've come to expect from this shitty world,:_ I thought with distant resignation as I continued to backpedal with my own horde hot on my heels and waited for the other wave to do me in. _:Gadamn world and their gadsbedamned demons. I could be at home, safe in my cozy bed with a pot of tea and a few good books, but noooo, they had to summon me to their world just to treat me like shit and make me fight their stupid apocalypse for them!:_

"This is really pissing me off!" I shouted in frustration. 

I let loose another taunt, trying to grab the aggro of the new guys so I could control them better and it worked a little bit, but only with mixed success.

"Hang on!" I heard Gyousou shout over the roar and din of battle. 

"Lord Sugimoto!" Raphtalia cried. "We're coming just hang in there!" 

From their right rearward flank, Gyousou led a rag-tag party of guardsmen and Adventurers to slam into the flank form behind. On the left side, Raphtalia led another group of fighters. They outflanked them in a pincer maneuver and I refreshed my taunt, pulling hate onto me as much as I could.

"Stone Shield!" I cried switching over to the one with the Stoneskin ability attached to it.

"Stoneskin!" I cried next, activating that shields special ability.

The Ability stoneskin sheathed me in an indestructible layer of stone for twenty seconds, and it had only a forty second GCD. That said, it felt cold and weird, like I was frozen in an immovable block of ice. It was a little scary but also reassuring as I saw that my enemies couldn't even scratch me.

I had one Leader Skill that I'd been keeping in reserve as it had a global cooldown of 5 hrs and so realistically could only be used once a day. At that point, however, it was smoke 'em if ya got 'em. I'd used all of my remaining accumulated LP to purchase the Leader Badge "Tower of Strength," which was a skill that granted me a 15% Heal-on-Hit for all Melee and AOE damage for as long as I remained in place. Paired with Stoneskin, which negated all physical damage for the twenty seconds it was active, paired with the heal on hit, I was effectively invincible for as long as I stood my ground and my Tower of Strength special ability lasted. I looked down at the timer on the ability, it would last for three minutes. If the attackers didn't clean them up by then, I would be rather done for.

"Tower of Strength!" I shouted from within my stone paralysis prison.

I stood my ground and let the wave of enemies come at me. The adventurers swept in on the enemy lines from the sides, fighting through the edges toward the center, reaping demons like chaff from wheat. I let the monsters pound at me, resolutely holding my shield up, no matter how many of them tried to overwhelm me. When stoneskin popped off and went on cooldown I just resolutely stood, watching the timer and my healthbar slowly dwindle int eh corner of my vision, and hoping for a heal soon.

The Skeleton Lord, however, intended to have his pound of flesh. He stood up and advanced on me through the crowd, standing head and shoulders above the rest. The greater demon stood right in front of me and raised his enormous bone cleaver, twice as long as I was tall, and half as wide. The shadow of its blade fell over me like the shadow of a guillotine. He swung down.

"Air Strike Shield!" I cried desperately, intercepting the blow with my phantom sheila and knocking him back. 

As soon as I switched from my Stone Shield, the attacks of the mobs started to eat away even more at my health because that shield offered a significant bonus to my defense as a passive. I switched back to my faithful doggy Cerberus and activated Howl. The Skeleton Lord, caught in Holw's stunning area of effect, swayed back and forth a bit. I was beginning to loose the aggro of the mobs now as I had been too distracted by not dying to do my job as a proper tank. I threw out another Mass Taunt, pulling most of them back to me and back-pedalling to keep things moving along in a line so that my would-be rescuers could work their way long a flank. 

The fighters at the back were making progress, inching their way forwards and winnowing down the distracted mobs. I was still all alone up at the front, desperately backpedaling and hoping for a miracle. I did not get a miracle, in fact, I got the opposite of a miracle. From the direction of the rift in the distance more demons poured out. Huge towering Skeleton Lords and their mobs, marching on our position like the orcs form Mordor. I counted at least five more skeleton lords, all making their way toward me. 

"Oh, perfect," I said, ready to rail at fate about it the Skeleton Lord army advancing on me.

Then, suddenly.... they weren't. 

There were a few distant flashes along the horizon. With bursts of colored light in yellow and red and blue, like distant fireworks, the towering army of Skeleton Lords disappeared. 

_:Looks like those boys are useful after all, and here I thought I was going to have to carry the weight of the entire Calamity on my back.:_

The adventurers in our ranks cheered at the distant sight of their precious Sainted Heroes triumph over evil. Raphtalia shouted exuberantly at me, clearly thinking that the battle was all but won. The mobs were easy to kill on an individual basis as long as I managed to keep their hate on me, it was just their sheer numbers that was the problem. The rag-tag bands of soldiers and civilian adventurers were doing their business well enough, now that they'd gotten the hang of things. The melee was so huge, I couldn't even begin to establish an order of battle, so I left the killing of the mobs to their own discretion. We were slowly turning the tide, and things were starting to get almost manageable, but I'd been in enough high-level raids to know that victory was a long ways off yet. 

I caught a flash of light from the corner of my eye and reacted instinctively, pulling the new girl down under me while I changed shield to activate my ability, Air Strike Dome. The translucent sphere of protection materialized around me and Raphtalia just in time. A wave of golden and red fire washed over top and around my protections like a river in flood, igniting the demon forces around me. It took a huge chunk out of the demon horde beyond, but if I hadn't leveled up my shield even I might have been toast. Raphtalia wouldn't have stood a chance.

"Hey!" I shouted over at the fancy city knights in their fancy expensive armor. It looked like the cavalierly had arrived so to speak, and they were all looking down their noses at me like they hadn't done anything wrong.

"Watch what you're doing, dumbass!" I shouted angrily at them. "Friendly fire isn't friendly! Your carelessness could have gotten us both killed if I hadn't reacted fast enough. We are supposed to be on the same side, the side that's not demons!"

"We saw the bulk of the enemy forces all concentrated here," one of the knights, a particularly snooty and smug looking fellow, said. "We used the opportunity to get rid of the most of the demons. We did you a favor, you should be thanking us."

I narrowed my eyes at him as thanking him was the last thing on my mind unless that thanking involved introducing my boot to his ass.

"Besides," the knight in immaculate looking armor next to him said. "Even if you had been destroyed, it's not like anyone would have missed you, the criminal and unnecessary Shield. Unnecessary things should just disappear."

"I see _you're_ still here," I muttered under my breath.

"We didn't make any mistakes," the knight leader insisted smugly, fortunately not having heard me be a smartass. "If you remain calm, you'll see that our actions were entirely correct."

I saw something they hadn't while they'd been smugly preening around like idiots, that brightened my day a little bit. There was a mob of Orc-sized demons that had shaken off the effects of my Taunt skills and were now looking around to attack any enemy they could get their hands on... including those guys.

I smirked. Sometimes, it was the little joys in life.

"It's clear to me now how utterly useless I am in this fight," I said sweetly while they looked pleased with themselves at having made me back down. "So if that's true, I should clearly just sit my little self down and let you big, _strong_ gentlemen handle... those guys."

I pointed behind them.

The horde of Orcs, seven or eight feet all walls of muscles and built like bulldozers, advanced with murderous purpose towards the knights. I got the fun sight of watching the smug superior looks drain right off from their faces when they realized how much trouble they were in.

"You bastard, useless Shield!" one of them shouted at me. "Go die!"

"I don't have time to deal with you being an idiot!" I snapped. "If we don't stop them here, these demons will destroy everything! Get to work and do your damn job! I'll hold them off, so you mop them up like good little minions."

"Who do you think you are, giving us orders?" one knight demanded in an offended tone. "You're nothing but a trash Shield Hero."

I looked back a them. While they'd been shouting at me, a Skeleton Lord had snuck up behind them and was preparing to take them out.

"Air Strike Shield!" I snapped, knocking the Skeleton Lord's blade back and alerting them to their real and imminent danger.

"You tin-plated assholes can do what you want," I said. " _Don't_ listen to me if you don't like living. I can leave you here to die at any time. If you want to do your job, then take the flanks along with the rest. I'll hold them. Good luck, gentlemen."

I walked away without a backward glance uncaring of they followed my directions or not. I had the bulk of the enemy forces to get control of, and if I didn't pull the hate back on me, the battle was going to disintegrate into a clusterfuck. I waded in and unleashed my Mass Taunt skill, which had just come off cooldown. The horde was back in the palm of my hand, and I escaped the crowd as I had done before and started back pedaling to keep the enemy moving in a line, thus stringing out their forces to make them easier to defeat singly. I kept at my job, ignoring enemy attacks and throwing taunts out at them while our forces winnowed away at their ranks. 

_:I guess those asshole knights from the Capitol aren't as useless as their perfect shiny armor makes them appear,:_ I admitted reluctantly to myself as I watched them snap into formation, close ranks and pull themselves together, joining the forces moving along the flanks only... they moved like a well oiled machine. 

I'd thought the forces that Gyousou and Raphtalia had managed together had been doing pretty well, but they all looked like rank amateurs next to the highly trained knights from the city. I'd never before actually seen the figure of speech "cut a swath through..." in action before, but I now had a point of reference for it. Within the hour, the last of the demons were rounded up and dispatched, just in time...

The red, cracked sky faded back to summer-blue and the rift healed. It looked like the other three heroes had defeated the Main Boss of the Rift and ended this Wave of Calamity! There were cheers from among the adventurers and village guardsmen who'd made it through the battle. 

"Looks like we made it," I said tiredly, slumping down next to where Gyousou sat next to Raphtalia, cleaning his sword, which had collected a few nicks in it over the course of the battle.

"Good work out there," he said giving me comradely pat on the shoulder, then a direct look

"It _almost_ makes up for your behavior _earlier_ today."

I blushed a bit, still a little chagrined but instead said

"Yeah, I suppose I'll have to send the church a nice fruit basket as an apology gift. Right after they apologize to me for their earlier treatment of me."

He huffed out a disappointed sigh, but his imminent lecture was interrupted by a messenger looking for the Hero of the Shield.

"They're preparing a banquet for the Heroes who fought the Calamity up at the palace, where the king will give you your rewards," the messenger reported. "Your attendance is mandatory and non-negotiable."

He was a little brat not even twenty years of age, and he still had the brass tacks to look down his weaselly little nose at me. I scowled at him, ready to tell him where he could go stuff the kings invitation. Gyousou restrained me.

"Don't you ever get tired of picking fights with that mouth of yours?" he said in exasperation. "If nothing else, you should go for the free food and to compare notes with the other Heroes."

"Why would I want to talk with them?" I muttered sullenly. "They'll just be assholes like everyone else."

"You owe me a favor," he said bluntly. "Think of it as penance for your out of line behavior today, and reflect upon yourself properly."

He had me there.

"Fine," I growled at the little messenger brat. "You tell your king I'll be there, since it seems I don't have any choice. He'd better haul out the good food though!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anyone likes LitRPG (a new genre of fiction that tells stories based in VR worlds like Sword Art Online, or actually crosses over into worlds that RPG mechanics like Rising of the Shield Hero) I have two series I highly recommend. I've read a bunch in the litRPG genre and these are the two I liked the best. So if you're looking for something good and you like Rising of the Shield Hero, I recommend these two series.  
> Awaken Online by Travis Bagwell  
> Forever Fantasy Online by Rachel Aaron & Travis Bach


	21. Intermission

There were still some straggler-mobs running around the battlefield that needed cleaning up, so I and the rest of the local village guard and a few adventurers did that. The village was mostly safe, a few buildings had been damaged and would need repair, but for the most part everything was intact. I overheard a report that said that the village had made a clean evacuation, losses had been minimal. Asa result, the local inn had decided to ignore teh Sherriffs standing orders that we not be allowed in the town we'd just saved, and they fed us and put us up for the night. The next morning it was up bright and early to make it to the city in time for the stupi king's vanity luncheon, in which he would most likely insult me and then dole out our hard earned war-funds as if he was doing us a favor instead of the other way around.

_:I really need to figure out another way to get by in this world, so that I'm not depending on that asshole king's non-existent charity,:_ I thought to myself, stretching int eh early morning light.

I had been dependent on a king once, and it was not an experience I ever intended to repeat again, so finding alternate revenue streams was a high priority to me.

"Wow!" Raphtalia said, in excitement when she heard the news that, as a member of the Shield Hero's party, _she_ was to be allowed to attend the fancy banquet at the _palace_. 

"Hopefully, it'll come with a hot bath and a some really good food!" I said optimistically. 

That was really all I wanted out of this at this point. I'd put up with the moronic Court of Assholes, the stupid king, that bitch Mein, and my idiot fellow-Heroes if I could just have a nice, hot bath, followed by a good meal and maybe a nice long nap. 

_:Man! The bar is on the floor!:_ I thought with a frown, then resumed my work cleaning up the field of the youma from the Cataclysm.

We'd spent the rest of the previous day running clean-up on the youma leftover from the Second Wave and helping the rest of the village guard put out fires and help the evacuees back to the town safely. As we planned to leave for the capital that morning, I made sure to take time to visit the adorable chocobos at the stable so that I could pick the cutest one for my ride.

_:They're all so cute!:_ I thought, enraptured by the soft fluff of their downy undercoats. _:And they come in so many different colors!:_

Far from being limited to teh classic yellow in my favorite game series, they came in pink and blue and green and orange. They looked like cotton candy! Adorable cotton-candy fluffs that went fast as the wind! My inner fangirl must have been showing as I lovingly scratched one under the chin.

"My, my! Lord Sugimoto certainly does seem to love filorials," I heard Raphtalia remark to Gyousou as they strolled up beside me.

"I honestly think that's the _only_ thing I've ever seen her like," Gyousou said dryly.

"Her?" Raphtalia said blankly. 

"Oops," he said, sighing tiredly. "Sorry Yuka, I've revealed your secret by accident."

"That's fine," I said, shrugging. "I guess there's no need to keep it a secret within the party. Yep, Raphtalia, I'm a lady-girl, just like you. I mostly keep it a secret because I don't want to put up with nonsense. People tend to doubt my ability even more, and I have to put up with enough crap as it is. Just try and be careful with my little secret. I'm counting on you!"

"Why not just let everyone know you're a girl, then you wouldn't have to be called a criminal and rapist because everyone would know you didn't do it?" Raphtalia asked.

"I think you underestimate the power of human stupidity," I replied to her sweet naivete as I bedded down in my sleep roll beside her. "Even if they saw me naked with their own eyes, they'd probably come out with something like "the evil Shield Hero is so corrupt, he can change his form and hide his gender!"

I mimicked the kings voice at his most pompous for effect.

"...Or something like that," I said. "We'll have to see how things work out. I'm willing to give them a little more rope to hang themselves with. If things go well at this banquet tomorrow, maybe I'll forgive them. If not, I might just see what I can do about getting a little of my own back at them."

"I hope you're not plotting something terrible," Gyousou said firmly. "Keep in mind, my ship is tied to yours."

"I know. I'll try to hold it in," I said with what I hoped was a reassuring tone.

The sigh I heard in the dark strongly suggested that my sword was not reassured.

Gyousou seemed to have a quiet, contemplative look about him that morning as he watched the citizens of the village gather in the square split up the labor and get on with the work of rebuilding. If I could put a name to it, he looked almost sad or regretful.

"Hey," I said, doing my awkward best to comfort him. "Don't feel so bad about it, we did the best we could to save the village."

"Hm?" he asked, looking over at me absently.

"You looked a bit sad, staring over there at the villagers doing reconstruction," I said. "I thought maybe you were beating yourself up over not getting all of it and letting the town make it through Calamity completely untouched."

"No. That wasn't it," he said. "I was just thinking of my own homeland. There was a time, when I was just a Captain in the Imperial Army, that I had supervised a reconstruction after a youma attack in a place much like this with people much like those. I was worrying over how badly my people might be suffering in my absence, and how it is that I'm going to make it home to them."

I grew quiet, remembering how bad youma attacks could be on his world. He was right to worry, probably. I knew nothing of the situation in Tai as it was not a kingdom I had any familiarity with. Still... I should try to do what I could to keep his spirits up.

"I, er, I'm sure your kingdom's doing fine," I said in my best comforting tone, which only came out sounding awkward and stiff due to my inexperience. "I mean, youma only come crawling out of the woodwork if the king of that kingdom looses the Way or goes against the Mandate of Heaven. I'm sure your kingdom has a good king who is going to take care of everyone."

If anything, my words made him seem even more depressed. He became quiet and withdrawn afterwards, and wandered away to go brood alone. I felt like a failure as a leader and Raphtalia's happy bustle as she brought our breakfast out of the inn didn't make me feel any better about the onerous chore facing me that day. The only thing I was looking forward to was seeing about a real bath!

_:Oh!:_ I realized, brightening. _: **And** I get to ride a chocobo back to the city!:_

I went to the saddlery to secure us three taxi-birds. Surely Gyousou would perk right up once he realized that he was going to get another chance to ride an adorable chocobo (or filorial) that day. Raphtalia and I ate our breakfast quickly and I sent her to find Gyousou while I retrieved our articles and had them secured to the birds for us. She returned a few minutes later with my brooding swordsman in tow. He was still brooding, but seemed to find something faintly amusing about the sight of me perched in a state of bliss on my fluffy little friend's back. There was a look about him most people reserved for puppies.

"What?" I asked, trying to frown at him, but finding it impossible to do while I was perched on the back of a chocobo.

"I think you've found the one place in this world where you're actually happy," he said with a small smile.

I was startled to realize that he was right. I loved chocobos (or filorials) and I really loved riding them. It did appear that I'd found my happy place. We set out, the birds going at a very good clip, and I found that journeying by filorial was every bit as fun the second time as it had been the first. I felt the weight of the world and the unpleasant thought of the banquet I was being forced to go to that day, fall away and I was just able to enjoy the ride. All too soon, however, the capitol city loomed before us and we left our filorals at the saddlery outside of the main city gate.

I trudged resentfully up to the castle on the hill, not at all looking forward to having to attend the banquet but still cautiously hopeful of a nice bath and some war funds for my trouble. After all, I _had_ done a _fine_ job in protecting Lute Village from a horde of monsters, (while the _other_ Heroes had just ran off to gain the glory of killing the main monster and hadn't _cared_ what happened to the little people who they had actually been summoned to save!)

"Halt there!" one of the guards stationed to either side of the portcullis that led into the castle shouted at me.

"The king has summoned me and my party to attend the victory banquet," I replied to the guards who had crossed their spears to prevent our entrance. "I'm the Hero of the Shield."

"How do we know you are who you say you are?"

I presented the Legendary Weapon as my proof since it was entirely impossible to fake it.

"Clearly his majesty didn't hire you for your brilliant detective skills," I said, scowling and in a bad mood because I didn't want to go to the party and have to put up with being mocked.

"Sugimoto, play nice," Gyousou muttered.

"It's that criminal Shield Hero," one guard whispered to the other then looked at me

"You don't _deserve_ the honor of attending the banquet alongside decent folk and _real_ Heroes. Trash like you should disappear."

"Fine," I said, seeing and opportunity to get out of attending a banquet I hadn't wanted to go to anyway. "Then _you_ can explain to your king why I was forced to disobey his edict just because you have opinions that you feel override His Majesty's."

I leaned forward and peered at the guard closely, as if memorizing his face to point him out later.

_"What_ did you say your name was again?" I asked, as though looking for a name-tag. "John?"

"The king is a great man," the guard I'd peered at said nervously. "He has no need to deal with such, er, trifling, er, details."

He hurriedly waved us through.

"You may pass," he said as though he were doing us a favor. "But don't let me hear about any trouble."

I rolled my eyes, inwardly a little disappointed that I wasn't going to get out of having to make nice for an afternoon with a bunch of people I really detested.

"Cheer up, Sugimoto," Gyousou said. "It's only a few hours."

"At least I'm getting compensated for my time," I said. 

Otherwise there was no way I would attend, Royal Decree or no Royal Decree. The war funds and rewards for fighting in the Calamity were passed out at the end of the banquet. One assumes they waited until the end so that I would have no choice but to sit through the whole stupid thing.

The palace was as nice as ever and Raphtalia looked awes and intimidated by its grandeur.

"This place is so big! And shiny!" she exclaimed.

"It's meh," I replied, looking around me. "I've been in more impressive looking palaces. The King of Kou's palace was twice this size with better interior design, and the landscaping at the palace of the King of En is a billion times more tasteful. I'm not sure what this guy is going for with all this, some parts of it look like a monastery and some parts look like Versailles and none of it matches."

Gyousou chuckled.

"You have some very decisive opinions," he remarked humorously. "How many palaces have you been in?"

"Three, in your world. I visited En's and I spent some time in Kou's royal palace, and I stopped off briefly in Kei before Youko took the throne."

We made it to the room which had been set up for the banquet. They'd removed some of the animal heads that had decorated to room before to make room for several round tables with white cloths, fancy centerpieces, and fancy place settings on each of them. All along one wall, in front of a large bank of windows and doors that led to the fancy polished marble patio that lined the inner courtyard garden, there was a long table with fine dishes laid out buffet-style, with lots of food arranged in elaborate sculptures that was meant as much for display as consumption. I was a little comforted by the thought that I would be picking out my own food onto my own plate, that meant that I wasn't going to need to worry about someone spitting into my soup before they served it to me.

"Alright team," I said, trying to hide my own nervousness. "Time to get your game-faces on, it's go-time."


	22. Dinner, With Dueling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine is Forced to Duel Stupidly

The room was already full of guests, nobles from the Court, adventurers of every stripe, the higher-ranked clergymen, and anyone with any pretensions to rank was there. I could sort of spot who belonged to what by the way they positioned themselves up in the room; the clergy and court were nestled mostly close to the king. Adventurers tended to flock around their chosen Hero like drones around their queen. 

_:Speaking of queen...:_ I thought taking in the ridiculous display that the countries king had made of himself this time.

If I had thought his previous ham-fisted attempt at intimidation had been bad, it was nothing compared to the gaudy monstrosity of a throne he'd ordered pulled in to replace it. The dais seemed to almost tower over the room at a height three quarters the height of a full-grown man, with wide cascading steps of marble that had the edges carved and inlaid with gold and gems. The throne he had now made his previous throne look like a model of taste and restraint. The back rose for twelve feet past his head and was carved and inlaid in intricate patterns that gleamed with precious metals and jewels. The arm rests were two tigers of white gold with black stripes of inlaid onyx and eyes of huge, matched rubies that winked in the light. His costume was hideously gaudy to match it, he wore enough jewelry to drown in and had the terrible taste of not only wearing rings on every finger, but several rings on a single finger as well.

_:It literally looks like he turned out his jewelry box and decided to wear everything,:_ I thought to myself, trying to keep from laughing at him. : _He looks like a christmas tree!:_

"Congratulations Heroes!" the king said in that tone that sounded like he was going for dignity but missed and hit pompous. 

It looked to me like he couldn't sit up from the weight of all the bling he'd hung on himself.

_:I guess what he lacks in Presence he's decided to just make up for in bling,:_ I thought with an inner laugh at the silly display he'd made of himself.

"Enjoy this celebratory banquet, you _three_ Heroes have earned it for _slaying_ the Great Monster of the First Rift!" the king added in tomes of great self importance, looking at the three gamer-boys in thier armor that was admittedly way better than mine and their weapons that admittedly looked much cooler.

Then he gave me the most disdainful side-eye I've ever seen in my life, and I've seen some pretty good ones before.

"And of course We extend Our _magnanimous_ praise to any _other_ hangers-on for what _little_ credit they deserve for running away in cowardice and only protecting themselves."

It was clear by the way he obviously looked down his nose at me, and from the smirks from the other Hero-boys, that the tale of what had happened during the battle to protect Lute Village, and my own contributions to teh fight, had been _greatly_ altered before they'd reached the king. Gyousou looked offended and plainly intended to step forward and rebuke the king himself for deliberately leaving me out, but a blast from some nearby trumpets that signaled the start of the feast cut him off, and everyone rushed to the banquet tables.

"Lord Sugimoto," Raphtalia said in protest. "That's not what happened, tell him!"

"Even if I told him," I said, turning my attention to the tables piled with food. "It's doubtful I'd be believed. I'm betting that he's heard his version of events from his Captain of the Guard or whatever, who hasn't been convicted of a crime. It's pointless to fight that battle when I know I won't win it. Let's get some food instead, and see what kind of Main Boss that the other Heroes faced. I'm curious to know about that."

I claimed one of the round tables out toward the edge of the room in a quiet corner where it was unlikely anyone could bother me as my staging area, and took possession of one of the large, empty plates to load up with food. Whatever else his faults, the King of Melromarc certainly had put out a _very_ nice spread. There was more food than I had seen in even the largest buffet place I'd ever eaten in, and it was all so fancy-looking and arranged so prettily. I was going to need several trips to try even a small sampling of everything! 

_:I didn't want to admit it before, but I've really been looking forward to getting some good food!:_ I thought happily. _:Alright! I want to try everything!:_

Then... all of the Court, and the parties of the Heroes, and everyone else who'd showed up for the banquet, shoved me aside and crowded me out so that I couldn't get close to the food! It just stood there in fine, tempting display getting ever more distant as people detirminedly shoved me back.

_:My... sweets...:_ I thought in dismayed longing as they got further away from me. _:And my delicious meat!:_

I'd worked so hard, and this was the only reason I'd come here.

_:This is **not** fair, and I'm **not** having any of it.:_

I was willing to take only so much. You could ruin my reputation, you could talk down to me, you could throw mud at me... but you did _not_ get between me and my food.

_:Like hell I'm letting them eat all my sweets before I can get any!:_

I changed shield to a weird one that I had never thought to use before. It was like a megaphone that increased the sound of my voice.

" **Atten-tion**!" I barked loudly in my best parade ground voice. 

The sound that came out of the microphone was as loud (or louder than) any rock concert I'd ever been to and my voice echoed and re-echoed in the massive banquet hall like the voice of a thunder-god. People were so surprised that they ducked by reflex.

"Make a path or I will Air-Strike Shield _anyone_ who gets between me and my lunch. I will only say this once. **Move it**!" I thundered.

A path was cleared for me and my party immediately, though of course everyone in the room stared at me in shock. I ignored them all with a placid look on my face and started piling my plate with deserts. After all of the nonsense I'd put up with, I _more_ than deserved some sweets to make up for the bitter taste this place left in my mouth.

"I guess you made it here after all," Itsuki greeted me. "We didn't see you during the fight against the Main Boss, Sugimoto."

"I had _other_ concerns," I replied. "You know, you and the other two boys took off so fast that you all left Lute Village in the lurch. I know you're excited about getting all the glory for yourselves, but you should try to remember that you were actually summoned to this world to protect its _people_ from the Calamity. It was fine this time since I managed to hold off the hordes of demons that came streaming out of the rift until the Knights could get there, but other villages might not have been so lucky. You should have a little more awareness."

"I don't need to be rebuked by _you_!" Itsuki snapped defensively. "I was brought here to kill the monster and end the Calamities and that's what I did!"

I gave him a look of silent reproof and turned away to go and eat my food in peace. He probably was not going to reflect upon himself. Gyousou and Raphtalia were waiting for me already seated around our table. I was also surprised to see Ren Amaki, the Sword Hero, waiting there as well, though he was not seated.

"The Sherriff of Lute Village has told the king that you did nothing but cower in the town while the Heroes bravely and nobly fought off the hordes," Ren said with a cool look.

"That lazy Sherriff is just salty I saved his bacon and is trying to look good for his liege," I replied, not really expecting to be believed. "You should never trust a sycophant in middle management."

"Which is why I had some of my trusted party members collect information from the Village Guardsmen who came to collect supplies this morning," he said with a slightly superior look. "It seems you are very highly thought of by those who fought to protect their homes. I won't lie, I was surprised to hear the reports of your bravery. I had thought you'd run away to protect yourself like Motoyasu had said you would do. Well done."

"And you," I replied with a nod. "What was the Main Boss like? I didn't even get to see it, I was far away on the other side of the hill defending the village from the demon hordes."

"It wasn't as difficult to defeat as I had thought it would be," Ren said, a little bit smugly.

Like any gamer-boy, he was always eager to talk about his successes. I put an attentive expression on my face and listened with half an ear as I dug in to my sweets. He could natter on all day for all I cared, as long as there was cake!

"It was a creature like a cross between a lion and a ram but a little larger than a bulldozer truck," he explained. "It had some kind of magic field that it activated to give itself a shield every few minutes while it healed itself. It could also call on nearby monsters from the rift to come and help it. The Skeleton Lords gave a lot of XP."

That reminded me that I hadn't checked my shield last night to see if I'd leveled up. I'd picked through the battlefield with the guard the day before, gathering up items and feeding them into my shield to used later to boost level Mastery.

"I faced a few of those things," I said, nodding to show I was familiar with them. "Though I must admit, I was honestly just as happy that you guys killed most of them before they could cause trouble on my end. There were so many hordes pouring out of the rifts, i was having a hard time tanking them all. I'm pleased that you found your fight an easy battle."

"If the next enemy is as easy to take out as this last one, this next Calamity should be a breeze," Ren said a trifle conceitedly. "For those of us who can actually fight, this shouldn't be any contest at all."

"Of course but there is a reason _why_ it was so easy for you," Giysou qualified from behind the boy.

My sword could certainly pull off this intimidating and somehow regal aura when he chose to and it seemed he had it in mind to lecture the Sword Hero for his tone.

"Bear in mind that you did not face all of the enemy at it's full strength," he said with a very pointed look. "And that there were _three_ of you Heroes wielding Legendary Weapons with offensive capabilities. An enemy would _naturally_ fall much more easily under such circumstances."

Ren frowned a bit at him, looking like he might be offended at possibly being belittled. I headed that off by ostentatiously looking at Ren's plate as though I'd just noticed something and interrupting with exaggerated delight.

"They have _flan_ here?!" I said, feigning pleasure. "I _love_ flan! I'm going to go get some before it's gone!"

I was about to rush off in order to end the conversation before things could turn into a row when I was interrupted by the voice of the person in the room I _least_ wanted to talk to or deal with that day.

"Sugimoto!" the voice of Kimura Motoyasu rang out with resonant, self-righteous tones. "Don't you move another step."

I couldn't keep from rolling my eyes. Really, it was always something with this guy.

"What?" I demanded flatly.

"I heard about it! Don't try to deny it!" he shouted at me.

Mein was smirking triumphantly in the background. I certainly knew whom it was that she'd heard about whatever the hell he was in high dudgeon about today from. It looked like she was up to her tricks again, this was _not_ going to be fun.

"Context," I reminded him in a bored tone, still eying my lunch and considering sitting down and ignoring him anyway.

The court was gathering round for the impending spectacle so it looked like I wasn't going to be able to avoid the confrontation. I snagged a few of the morsels from my plate to munch on, slouched against a nearby pillar and looked coolly back at him. Damned if I was going to be put off my food when I finally got something good I hadn't had to cook myself. Sadly, when I bit into it, it still tasted like sand, just like everything else on this world.

"That poor girl over there is your slave," he accused, pointing to Raphtalia. "She bears a slave mark put on her body by you."

"Yeah, so? What of it?" I said shrugging and turning back to my food.

"So it's reprehensible!" he said dramatically, clearly happy to get on his high horse and start laying down the law according to his own views. "You can't own another person, it's wrong!"

"Tell that to the majority of the noblemen in this country, plus half of the city guard and almost all of the judges," I replied in a bored tone. "Those aren't peasants or tenants out tilling those fields off the great estates. Not to mention, the mines. Some of them are mined by free miners, it's true, but there are more mines owned by nobles or local officials that see greater profits from slave labor."

"You have no proof of your accusations!" Mein shouted angrily. "You're a liar who isn't the least bit sorry over what you did to me!"

She teared up for effect and Motoyasu tuned to comfort her sympathetically and I burned with a hot flash of pure rage that made me literally see red.

"Oh honey," I said in a voice that sounded cold and distant in my ears, almost like the world had faded out around me. "You and I both know that I didn't _do_ anything to you, but now.... ohhh, _now_."

I didn't finish my sentence, I just let my murderous silence speak for me. If I had the chance she was a dead woman.

"That doesn't even address your new crime, which is that you can't own another person," he said. "It's wrong!"

There was murmuring from the hypocrites of the court surrounding us and I looked at them with an eyebrow raised in a sweeping look that said they could murmur all they liked but I knew the truth about where their wealth really came from. The Sheriff form Lute Village was there, in fact, and I pinned him with a particularly pointed look and he visibly paled. Well I guess that solved the mystery of where the king had got his information about the demon swarm on Lute village, I had not seen that guy show his face once on the battlefield and he was supposed to lead the guard.

"That's only your own common sense, leave me out of it!" I snapped, irritated with the Spear Hero and wanting to get back to my lunch.

Raphtalia had passed her trail period, and I'd been going to lift her slave curse anyway and hadn't gotten round to it. I'd discovered with some experimentation with Gyousou's settings that the Slave-tamer shield actually leveled up a slave better than regular party-leveling, so part of my move had been about efficiency. Now with this guy making such a big deal about it, I couldn't switch the slave curse off right away without making it look like I was doing whatever he told me to do.

"I want you to let her free," he said firmly.

"People in hell want ice water," I replied. "That sounds like a " _you_ problem" and not a " _me_ problem" so tottle along will you? There's a good boy."

"I challenge you to a duel!" Motoyasu said. "The condition upon my win is that she will be released. As denizens of another world, we must uphold the proper and righteous standards!"

"Again. _You_ problem."

"Lord Sugimoto didn't force me to fight!" Raphtalia tried to protest. 

Someone snuck up behind her and placed a gag over her and I instantly saw red. That was my companion! I changed shield, preparing to lock him in a bear trap and free my companion when that damn king stuck his pointy nose into things.

"I heard all about it," he said, interrupting pompously. "A hero who would dare to use a slave! Of course it wouldn't be anyone but the criminal Shield Hero. The comparison between the Spear and the Shield Heroes is as great as night and day. I shall allow this duel!"

"Who the hell asked _you_?!" I snarled over at him.

Gyousou snaked his hand over my mouth before I could get really get started on that rotten king.

"Your mouth is going to get you thrown in prison," he muttered in my ear.

He must have seen the angry look of 'he started it!' on my face, for he abruptly chuckled. 

"If you're feeling that energetic," he added, releasing me. "I suppose you might as well have a duel. It might be a good way to burn off some steam. If nothing else, you may get the pleasure of making the boy eat his words."

"Fine," I growled as soon as he removed his hand. "But.."

I looked over at Motoyasu. 

"My win-condition is that you and that bitch Mein Sophia have prostrate yourselves in apology before me. One of you should do it anyway."

"You're on!" Motoyasu cheered, clearly not seeing any way where I could possibly come out the victor.

The idiot might have fought monsters, but he'd clearly never fought a duel. Different rules, different strategies. Ren rolled his eyes at us both, but followed along when we and the rest of the court went out into a backyard garden to a cleared out spot lined by hedges into a perfect square with braizers blazing into the night for illumination.

The king pompously laid out the rules of the duel, which was that if an opponent was defeated physically, or driven into one of the corners or fell out of the ring, then the victory was declared to the combatant who'd ousted him. The win conditions were then announced, and the king called out

"Let the duel commence and may victory favor the honorable!"

"I'll bring you to your knees, for Raphtalia's sake!" Motoyasu proclaimed, posturing a bit. "Toute de suite!"

I rolled my eyes and changed-shield to my trusty Cerberus Shield. 

"Since you're determined to persist in your idiocy, I suppose I've no choice but to make you eat your words," I said, saluting him with my shield. "By cramming them down your throat!"

I activated my battle skills 'Sanctuary I' and 'Warleader I'. Sanctuary was a no-brainer because of the healing it offered, but Warleader (with +10 to attack damage by all allies in range) and then 'Warsong I' which offered +5 to all ally's stats, they had an advantage I hadn't thought of until then. They both affected _all_ allies, and I had only been thinking of it applying to my team in battle... but it also applied to me. I didn't have any offensive capabilities yet. My shield-bash (used mainly as a close-range Provoke Ability) only did one point of damage, which was negligable against even a yellow balloon, but with my buffs active, I now had 15 damage and a cooldown of like, ten seconds on my Bash. 

"Meteor Spear!" he shouted, his spear lighting up and flashing a brilliant blue white as he lunged in to finish me off. I caught the tip of his spear, like lightning, on the jewel of my Shield and a wave of force washed weakly over me, breaking easily against the bulwark of my defense. I didn't even stagger. I looked back at him over the top of my shield. 

"So that's all you've got? My turn then."

"Air Strike Shield!" I slammed the phantom Shield into him, activating it's knock-back ability knocking him back on his ass. 

There was a short pause while he scrambled to his feet and I waited for the cooldown. He hadn't regained his balance quite when I slammed into him again. Again he fell on his ass. This was _fun_. He rolled this time however, then lunged at me again, and I caught the blow, impervious to the impact. He tried again, and again and again with the same result. I was basically immune to his attacks.

"I could do this all day," I informed him as he sent yet another wave of power against me uselessly.

If I couldn't outfight him, you can bet that I was going to outlast him.

"Just admit that you've lost," Motoyasu said firing another strong attack off at me. "Even if you fend off my attacks, you lack the power to defeat me!"

I changed-shield to Cerberus Shield when he lunged in at me again. This time, instead of catching the blow with my shield, I dodged and let his lance sweep past me, activating my skill Double Dog Bite when he got in close. My puppies chomped down on the like he was the mailman. Good boys! Because I had leveled up that Shield to Rare, increasing the damage my dogs did on thier attack, and adding a bleed effect. The Double Dog Bite ability, my only offensive ability, was at a baseline of fifty points damage. With my buffs it was up to sixty-five. Motoyasu howled out in surprise and anger.

"That's cheating!" he exclaimed. 

"Don't be such a baby and take your ass-beating like a man," I said, my doggies holding him in place for some Bleed damage while I waited for the cooldown to run out.

"Aaah! Owww!" he cried out in pain when I had my shield release him and then bite him again for a total of one hundred and thirty points of damage cumulatively, plus and extra three DPS bleed damage while the doggies pinned him in place. 

"A few more of those should do the trick," I said, ordering my doggies to release him so he could consider my offer. "Ready to yield?"

"I'll never yield to you and your cheaty shield!" he shouted defiantly. 

"Fine," I said in a bored tone. "It looks like you're determined to do things the hard way. Don't say I didn't offer to alleviate your suffering."

I was about to have my babies nom on him again when he came in for another attack when something hard slammed in on me from behind, knocking me briefly unconscious and slamming me into the ground. I blearily looked around for the source of the attack that had come to my unprotected flank when suddenly Motoyasu was on me, blade of his spear at my throat smirking triumphantly at me. I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see Mein Sophia, the bane of my existence, smirking and drawing her hand back, a hand that still had lingering traces of magical light energy around it. She'd just let off some kind of spell, interfering with the duel. Surely this blatant cheating wouldn't be allowed to stand! Motoyasu smirked, standing over me with me at the end of his spear and at his mercy.

"And I believe that's my win!" he said in a smug, celebratory tone.

"That's cheating!" I protested. "I was attacked from behind by that bitch Mein!"

"The Shield Hero cannot even admit when he had lost fairly to the noble and compassionate Hero of the Spear!" the king proclaimed loudly.

"That's a lie!" Gyousou shouted, stepping forward and looking like he was one short step from strangling the king barehanded. "I saw that girl interfere with magic."

"Of course the companion of that dishonorable Shield Hero would defend the criminal's blatant cowardice," the king relied in a mocking tone. "If that is so, and my dear _daughter_ truly is accused of dishonorable behavior, then surely one of the other members of the court saw it?"

The kings gaze swept the room and everyone sort of stepped back and looked the other way. Gyousou looked more furious than I'd ever seen him look before. He glared at them both and let me tell you, there was something about the weight of his gaze when he glared that made even me, who was not its focus, want to bow my head low and ask forgiveness. The king and Mein both looked a like they might have peed a little.

"I can see that court and king in this land are equally deserving of each other," Gyousou said in scathing tones. "I hope that Heaven's Law catches up with the both of you soon. As for us, we have other places to be. Good day."

He gave a bow that was just _barely_ polite and turned on his heel, but not before he paused beside where the Sword and Bow Heroes were standing, watching the bout and its following events.

"On and off the battlefield," Gyousou said quietly, with a look of heavy disappointment. "Badly done."

They both looked like whipped pups. I scrambled to my feet and set off after him, eager to be quit of the place.

"Come on, Raphtalia, let's go snag all of their deserts and go find an inn," I said with a sudden feeling of mischief. "I want a real bath!"

If they were going to be unpleasant, I was going to make off with the best food and all of their wine if I could manage it.

"Hold it!" the king shouted. "The condition of the win still stands. The girl shall have her slave mark removed and--"

I was all too happy to take the wind out of his sails. I switched to my Party Menu and changed her status from Slave: Damage Dealer 2, to Member: Damage Dealer 2. Her slave mark flashed and disappeared on it's own when she accepted the invite to my party.

"There. Done," I said. "Don't know what you all were making such a fuss about. I only had it set on Slave because it seems to level up my party members more efficiently than just the ordinary settings for an average party member. Something about the way Slave-tamer levels it's stats is better for some reason, I don't know why."

I was going to have to be contented with that, as it looked like it was the only satisfaction I was going to get out of this whole waste of time.

I eyed their banquet table speculatively, then exchanged a significant glance with Gyousou, pleading with my eyes. Gyousou seems to have read my thoughts and, surprisingly, seemed to have decided to humor me and go along with it. Either that, or he hated the Royal Court here as much as I did, for he nodded the go-ahead signal. I grinned sharply.


	23. Afterparty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroes Make Off Like Bandits, and a Meeting Is Held

Raphtalia and I raided the banquet table, making off with the best food at the table, which we piled into a giant tureen so big we had to carry it between us. If they were all going to be asses about everything _and_ ruin my lunch, then they deserved to eat scraps! Before we left, a royal bureaucrat got our attention and gave us our war-funds from the table next to the throne. My bag was noticeably a _lot_ smaller than the other three. The kings favoritism knew no bounds. 

"Just for that little insult," I informed the bureaucrat, turning back to the feast table. "Bring out the wine, the good stuff mind you!"

While the poor royal stooge reluctantly obeyed, I got a whole roast, half a bird stuffed with other delicacies, three full bowls of desert and a whole pile of sandwich-makings for later. I perused the wine bottles and grabbed the three most expensive-looking ones. Gyousou chuckled at my revenge and, for the first time since I'd known him, joined in the fun. We made it out of there with a roast pig on a spit and _all_ of the kings finest bottles of wine!

By quiet mutual agreement, since we could not possibly eat it all, we paused outside of a charity-house, knocked on the door and dropped off about three-quarters of the goodies from the feast before we made our way to the second-best inn in the city. 

"Swanky place," I said in admiration when we crossed the threshold.

We were met at the door by someone who looked like he fully intended to turn us away. I suppose I couldn't really blame him, we probably looked like a bunch of food-stealing vagabonds. I pulled out my Shield Hero immunity badge and he reluctantly let us pass, though it was clear that he wished that it had been one of the _other_ heroes who'd chosen to grace his establishment. I used my coin to buy a whole suite of rooms, complete with a private bath, and me and Raphtalia settled the food in a magic icebox except for what we left out to make into sandwiches for dinner.

"Nice!" I celebrated, flopping down on a cushy, fluffy bed with a luxurious down comforter. "Dibs on the bath!"

I bee-lined for the bathing chamber. In my own world, a private room for luxuriating in a hot water bath was a recent luxury, actually it had barely been around for a hundred years and was already considered to be less a luxury and more a necessity. I certainly considered it one.

_:Either they have some sort of magical system in place to dispose of waste and pump in water, or this place must have some sort of sewer system after all._ :

For all I knew, it was a combination of the two, but I wasn't going to bother trying to figure out the sanitation systems of this world. I was too busy stripping down to my skin and running a hot bath for a soak. 

"Ah... bliss," I sighed, laying back in the gloriously hot water. 

I relaxed for an hour or so, but then my conscience nagged at me, reminding me that I had just fought a Calamity and had not yet leveled up any of my other shields nor converted Proficiency to EP. I had promised myself also that I was going to start investigating my Alchemy Shield. So far my highest level-craft was Cooking. 

The first thing I noticed was that all of the shields I'd used in battle had maxed out their Mastery levels, but the shields that had a higher level of Rarity had yielded higher numbers of LP as well as EP when I reset their Mastery. I had suspected that this might be so, but it was nice to know for certain. I could decide on what options I would buy with my new relative wealth of LP later, right then I needed to convert all of my Mastery levels to EP and see about leveling some of my shields up. I started going through the shields I'd been using lately.

_:I wonder if I missed out on any proficiency points since Mastery caps at a hundred. I'll have to see about setting it to automatically convert the Ep and roll over once it reaches cap. There should be an option in its settings menu...:_

I tabbed to the Conversion screen and hit the Settings tab, then skimmed down my options until I found the auto-convert options menu and selected my preferred settings then hit save. I got the usual double-check pop-up, and confirmed again.

_:There, that should take care of me having to worry about missing out on EP from Mastery-resets,:_ I thought to myself, pleased. _:Now lets see about what I can get with all of my EP.:_

_:Since I do so much cooking while we're in the field, and I plan to use my alchemy more, I suppose it would make sense to bump up those shields up to the next rarity so I can benefit from the boost in stats and in harvesting their Mastery for EP,:_ I considered, feeling a little luxurious with all these points. _:We'll see how much points I have after I bump up my main five.:_

It took 1000 EP to bump a Common up to an Uncommon, and my main five were already Uncommon. Bumping an Uncommon up to a Rare took 10,000 EP. To bump up my four main shields; Trap Shield, Prison Shield, Mark Shield and Air Strike Shield to Rare would take 50,000 EP!

_:Still, it will pay dividends,:_ I told myself as I winced and paid the price with most of the EP I'd gotten from the recent Second Wave battle. _:Those shields will bring in more EP for being higher levels and their stats and abilities will raise.:_

I decided that I'd leveled up enough of my battle-shields already, and I should focus on increasing my net-gain from those crafting shields I used frequently. With this in mind, I leveled up the Alchemy Shiled and the herb-gathering shield to Uncommon, which gave me a nice bonus to Harvesting and unlocked the Compounding system for Alchemy. I also found the function in that shield that allowed me to harvest demon drops and treat them like alchemy ingredients. It seemed that I'd needed to level up my harvesting shield to have access to it. The nice thing was that it was retroactive, so the demon drops I'd been getting but hadn't found a use for in leveling my shields were usable as alchemy ingredients. I upped Cooking to the next Rarity and looked over the advantages to find that I could now add buffs to the recipes I'd been cooking, with the higher level recipes having better buffs that lasted longer as long as I kept my Proficiency high.

_Let's see what else I have to work with...:_ I mused, perusing through my shields. 

I mostly ignored the cheap one-off shields with no special skills or abilities, like the Orange Shield and the Purple Shield, which I had unlocked from some random low-level monsters. I considered Stealth for a long moment. I was a tank, so stealth wasn't really a skill that was supposed to be of much use to me, but Id discovered that it was surprisingly useful, just not in battle. 

_:I'm definitely leveling this one up!:_ I thought. : _If I'm going to be getting into trouble whether I like it or not, it's better to be prepared.:_

I washed off one final time and climbed out of the tub, washing it after me for the next person then dressing in some casual clothes, a sleeveless tunic and some loose-fitted pants for wearing around the room. My hair dried fairly quickly because it was so short so I was surprised when I emerged, toweling off to see that I had unexpected company. Ren Amaki and Itsuki Kawasumi were both there, seated at the small table in the main room.

"Oh... hey," I said, not bothering to disguise that I was not particularly thrilled to see either of them. "What are you guys doing here?"

I deliberately lowered my voice and used a masculine form of speech and Gyousou caught my eye and silently expressed that he thought I was being foolish for carrying on the pretense that I was a boy and not a girl with my fellow Heroes.

"We, er, wished to..." Ren narrowed his eyes at me, or rather, seemed to be looking at my chest.

I'll be the first to say that I'd never been particularly well-endowed, but the shirt I was wearing with thin cloth and the sports bra I was wearing under it showed through around the edges and through the white cloth. I looked back at him in challenge.

"Is there a _problem_ , Amaki?" I asked pointedly.

He didn't reply, but cocked his head in a manner that indicated he was thinking something over, still staring. He then looked over at Itsuki in question to see if he had noticed the same thing Ren had. The little cinnamon roll looked entirely oblivious, so Ren shrugged in dismissal. I could tell, however, that he was obviously thinking over whether or not he'd seen what he thought he'd seen.

"We wanted to apologize," Itsuki said, nudging Ren sharply with his elbow.

"Yeah, that," Ren agreed distractedly. 

"We both agreed that we should have spoken up more quickly against the king," Itsuki continued pointedly, forcing Ren back into the discussion with another nudge.

"I understand why you didn't," I replied. "The king _is_ the one handing out war-funds. If you'd said something, he might have lessened your pay. He's kinda petty like that."

"That's not--" Ren said, then paused. "Well, honestly the thought, unworthy as it was, _did_ cross my mind. But that's no excuse for cowardice."

"You're right," I said, having been as understanding as I was willing to be right then. "It isn't."

My mood had brightened for the better in the bath for having gotten a bath and received lots of nice bonuses, but it was only going to stretch so far. Gyousou cleared his throat and gave me a pointed look, telling me that I should be trying to make friends.

"I suppose, however, we should let it be water under the bridge," I said, trying to keep my grudge out of my tone. "Just try to do better in the future."

I sat at the table with them and helped myself to some after-bath leftovers, piling up my plate. 

"Sit down and eat," I invited them. "No need to stand on ceremony. Where's your parties?"

"We left them back at the feast," Itsuki said. "Ren thought it'd be better to speak to you in private as it didn't really seem much like you were interested in a lot of company."

"Ren's a very observant boy," I said agreeably, biting into my sandwich and swallowing. "I've really had about all the company I can take."

Ren nodded agreement as I filled the fancy gold wine-goblet with the finest of the wine we'd taken from the feast. I may have incidentally taken one of the king's fancy gold toasting goblets during the rush. Being a good hostess, I filled the glasses of my guests with the kings fancy wine as well. Ren looked very amused as Itsuki looked at the bottle and said

"Isn't this the kings fancy, special toasting wine?"

"Only the best," I agreed smugly. "Cheers!"

I raised my glass up with the other two Heroes and my own party for a toast. The wine was... really _really_ good. Like it was probably the best tasting wine I'd ever drank before. No-wonder the king always seemed to have a glass in his hand. 

"Say what you like about his crappy attitude and terrible leadership style," I said, taking a bigger gulp and then another. "The man does have good taste in wine."

"I'm being toasted with disreputable scoundrels," Ren said dryly, sounding like he found the situation humorous.

"Hmmm," I said, brought up short and smiling over at him in wicked amusement. "That... That actually has a nice ring to it. Disreputable Scoundrels. If I had a guild, that's what I'd name it. Name it and claim it. If I'm going to be wrongly accused, I can at least make something of it."

"I think you've had enough of this," Gyousou said dryly, taking away my almost empty wine glass. "And we are not going around calling ourselves The Disreputable Scoundrels. No."

"Awww," I protested disappointledly. "What about the the Magnificent Bastards?"

"Not that either," Gyousou said.

"The Wicked Wastrels?" I suggested next, reaching for another bottle of wine.

"No," he shot it down, relieving my of my new bottle before I got any more tipsy. 

Raphtalia laughed and Itsuki looked like he'd thought it was funny as well. It was nice to break the ice.

"So, where are you two boys headed next?" I asked. "I'm going to go back to Lute Village to help with the construction and maybe get some more drops from my battle if they haven't all been cleaned up yet. Also, there's a magician there who owes me some reading lessons."

"Reading lessons?" Itsuki asked, clearly surprised. "Why are you wasting time with that? You should spend your time on leveling. You can just use magic crystals if you want to cast a spell."

"It's a matter of short-term versus long-term gains," I replied. "A spell crystal is a one-time use item, whereas if you master a spell, you can use it as many times as you want. Also, there's scaling. You learn the basic spell, and you can upgrade your baseline magic in the Magic tab of the Jobs menu, and your spell can exceed the amount of power available in a spell crystal. That's a huge advantage to a Shield Hero who can't equip an attack-style weapon."

"I see," Ren nodded. "I... wished to ask you about your, er, unusual abilities. The battle-aura you had during the duel... you were _healing_ yourself, _and_ you had attack, however small. My Sword informed me that you had something called a Battle Aura activated called **Warleader I** and **Sanctuary I**. I wished to inquire about them."

"They aren't in your Job menu?" I asked blankly.

That only made sense to me that the leader of the party would have the Leadership Badges for battle.

"I don't have a Job Menu," said Ren. "What's that?"

"Leader Badges aren't part of the Job System in Dimension Wave Online!" Ituki said in an accusing tone. "Are you cheating with mods?!"

I frowned at the accusation of cheating and then paused, realizing where the difficulty lay. I debated with myself about whether or not I wanted to give away the secret I'd worked so hard to unlock, then I shrugged. We were all going to be facing thesame enemies int eh end, there was no point in holding back just to make myself look good. That was the same as allowing my own pride to shoot myself in the foot.

"I have a confession to make, mostly to Ren here," I said, pouring them another drink. "In the beginning I couldn't figure out how to make my Shield work, it was all over the place. I unlocked shields but I couldn't figure out how to use them and I didn't see any Tanking Abilities or a Skill Menu or _anything_. So... Well, I decided that I should just figure out how the rest of you used your own Legendary Weapons in order to help me use mine. I used a Shield that I'd unlocked called Stealth Shield to sneak up on you, or I had an agent infiltrate your party, and well... I spied on your leveling secrets."

They both looked at me in shock at my admission. Shocked and offended, Ren rose to his feet, clearly with the intent to leave, and before they could write me off as a criminal in truth, I hurriedly added

"I discovered something interesting!"

They paused, visibly suspicious.

"There's an interesting trick you boys might like to learn," I offered.

Ren slowly sat back down, frowning at me.

"Your shield _is_ uncommonly strong, almost to the point of being game-breaking," Ren admitted with an accusatory glare. "What is the interesting thing you found?"

"None of you have compared notes, beyond figuring out that Weapon Copy is a thing," I prefaced my explanation, building things up so that they could understand it fully. "It was _that_ that was my main clue to figuring out the mystery of how Legendary Weapons operate. Motoyasu, when I questioned him through my agent, feels that everything depends on modifying and improving the Legendary Weapon using ores and catalysts. Itsuki here, feels that everything depends on Rarity to give it an overall boost in performance. Ren uses a Mastery system to improve his weapon by boosting its performance. Every one of you guys improves his weapon in his own way, and they all are a little different. In short, they all follow the rules you guys feel is common sense from the way you do things in the worlds you came from."

They both nodded as though it was common sense. I leaned in to make my point and quietly said

"They _all work_ , and I can use _all of them_ on my Shield."

"Whaat?!" they demanded, clearly floored.

"Yes," I nodded, partly inebriated. "Back in the beginning I'd had a bad day and prayed to my shield to play my music from my MP3 player because all the cool games were doing it and I wanted my music bad enough that I just sort of willed it as part of my shields functions. That was how I figured that I could just sort of believe other functions into existence if i made it part of my common sense. Since you guys all had these advantages I knew they were possible. I just believed them until they were true." 

"That's impossible," Ren said flatly.

"It doesn't work that way!" Itsuki insisted.

"Granted," I said with a shrug that said I could share the info with them but I couldn't make them believe it's truth. "They probably work differently from how they work for you... my set-up looks a little like the set-up from my old Final Fantasy games crossed with a few Online games I spent a long time playing, but everything winds up working more or less how I think it should." 

They both were giving me this long, searching look, as though they were mostly certain I was lying and they didn't believe me, but were partly hoping I was telling the truth. 

"So... that's that then. I have Leadership Badges that I can with Level Points because that's what _I'm_ used to. I had my tanking skills in my job menu because tanking _is_ my job. You two don't have to believe me if you don't want to, I just thought I'd be nice and share my advantage with you. After all, we're all going to have to fight the next Calamity together."

They sat quietly for a moment, exchanging a long, speaking look with each other as if they were asking each other whether or not what I was saying could possibly be true. I could see doubt and a little bit of mercenary glee creep into their faces. There are few things a gamer loves more than a good way to become more powerful. The problem for them would be that they'd doubt that it worked, so when they tried it, it probably wouldn't work for them because they didn't really believe in it. 

"So tell me how the battle went," I said, to change the subject. "I'm interested in hearing what the fight was like."

As boys often did, once I'd brought up something that enabled them to shine, they couldn't stop talking about themselves. I acted impressed in all of the right places, determined that I was going to try to get them at least a little bit on my side. We probably would have worked our way through one of the bottles of wine, as we were all underage on our worlds and wine-drinking was forbidden to us, but Gyousou kept things from getting out of hand. He allowed us our one drink and then cut us off, only letting us have watered down wine afterwards. 

Over the course of conversation, I was able to come to a more informed opinion of them. Ren was the most mature and the most intelligent, but he went out of his way to flaunt both of those characteristics. He liked to be the one doing the condescending and talking down to other people, and thus he hated it when other people talked down to him. He would immediately dismiss an opinion as invalid and unworthy of consideration if it wasn't solidly backed up by some kind of fact. My first impression of Itsuki as a justice-freak wasn't entirely wrong, but the more I spoke with him, the more I began to gather the impression that he'd been bullied or at least pushed around in his old life and it had given him a lot of the same hang-ups that I still had. He tended to invent a narrative in his own head and stubbornly tried to fit the world in around that narrative, no matter what showed up to conflict with it. 

_:Not bad kids, either one of them...:_ I decided for myself after I'd let them brag for a while. _:A little dumb because they both seem to think that this is all some sort of game, rather than a reality they must face and learn to deal with. Unless they get that, something is eventually going to bite them in the ass.:_

It would be best to try to introduce the topic gently, so as not to jar them too hard or make them immediately resistant.

"So lads," I said cheerfully once they'd finished with a blow-by-blow account of thier great heroism in defeating the great Monster spawned by the rift. "I was having a bit of trouble the other day and it came up in conversation that there is no re-spawn point in this world."

They both frowned at me blankly, both of their faces saying as clearly as if they'd said it out loud... 'what do you mean no re-spawn point? Of course there's a re-spawn point, how else are we going to resurrect?'

"Naturally, I wouldn't want to die just to see if it's true," I continued with a small laugh. "I'd wondered if either of you had had any companions or anything that had died and then been resurrected?"

"Er, no..." Itsuki said, looking uncertain and a little upset.

"My team has capable fighters, so resurrection has never been an issue," Ren replied coolly.

I was quiet for a moment then carefully said

"Here's a thought. If perma-death is a thing here, it perhaps applies to all of _us_ as well."

"Of course it wouldn't apply to us!" Itsuki immediately protested. "We're the Heroes, we can't die."

"Hmm," Ren said, clearly thinking it over while I said nothing. "When we were originally summoned and you requested to be returned to your home, Sugimoto, I _do_ accurately recall that the priests had said that none of us could leave until all of the Calamity had been dealt with, and that a Legendary Weapon could not be passed on to someone else unless and until it's original wielder had died."

"Following that line of logic," I nodded agreement, pleased he'd made my point for me. "Then it becomes apparent that a Hero is indeed able to die permanently and not be resurrected."

I paused and looked sharply at them both

"If it all comes down to life or death, and death is permanent, then this, lads, is _no game_. There's no rez-point and Game Over means you're done forever."

There was a sober pause at that and Itsuki, the cheerful one just said

"Then I guess we'll have to make ourselves so strong that we don't die!"

Ren, however, seemed to have begun to grasp some of the darker implications, like that his party was depending on him for their survival and that their deaths would be on his hands, and that he was not immortal either and that there was no do-over, no save-reload, nothing to keep him from whatever waited at the end of the line. I nodded somberly to him at least, willing him to think it over. It was in a much more quiet and contemplative mood that the two other Heroes took their leave of me and went to seek out their own parties and their own accommodations they'd made in the city.

"I'm glad that's over with," I said to Gyousou as we packed up the remainder of our little feast into the ice box and prepared to go to bed. 

"It's hard to tell if you like them or not," Gyousou said candidly. "On the one hand, you are clearly trying to help them improve their skills, and have delivered to them a sobering warning about their blithe attitude toward life and death in this world. On the other hand, you don't seem to respect them very much as individuals."

"I was perfectly respectful," I insisted defensively, mostly because he was right as usual.

There really was no fooling this man.

"Outwardly," Gyousou replied. "Behind your politeness, however, you think them both idiots."

My hesitant face must have spoken loudly about how right on the mark he was for there was a gleam in his eye that was insufferably triumphant. There was really no point in denying it, but I should probably set the record straight.

"As it happens, I'm trying to help them because in the end we all must fight the Calamity together," I said. "The stronger they are and the better they level, the less work I have to do, hopefully. It's mostly self interest. But... yes, there is a part of me that thinks they're idiots, that wants to grab them and shake them and say wake-up! but that only mostly because I see a lot of my old self in them. They're certain of their rightness, and that certainty is going to land them, and possibly all of us, in real trouble one day if I don't do what I can to poke a few holes in it like was done for me."

Gyousou gave me one of those long, measuring looks he sometimes did and seemed to decide something, for he reached out and ruffled my hair a little. I frowned at him, neatening it back up.

"You should get some rest," he said in a kindly tone. "If I'm not mistaken you have plans for the morning."

"Sleep well," I said. 

It was nice to enjoy a soft, clean bed with smooth sheets that smelled of soap and a luxurious room. It did make me miss my home and my comfy futon, and my books and my games, though. I wished that I'd never bumped into that young man with the messy hair in the library and picked up that weird book and started reading. 

_:I suppose there's no fretting about it now,:_ I thought on the edge of sleep. _:All I can do is what I can do, and hope that everything works out okay.:_


	24. Chapter 24

The next morning, we enjoyed a huge, wonderful breakfast provided by the inn's room service, and I spent the morning with my Alchemy Shield getting a feel for how the alchemy system in my shield worked. Unsurprisingly, it worked almost exactly as I expected it to, which is to say, with the way I was most familiar for alchemy crafting to work. 

The way my Shield did alchemy was that every plant or monster drop that could be harvested as a raw material for alchemy (and there were a _lot_ of them, even among the low levels) had between one and four intrinsic effects. These effects were not immediately apparent, instead they had to be discovered first. I could use the Analyze function to discover the material's effects, though that way was slow going, or I could just eat it and see what happened. Once I had discovered a material's effects I would then Process it using the Process Screen to isolate those effects. The Process Screen had four basic options for turning a raw material into a usable alchemy ingredient; grind, boil, distill and compress. Each of these options would isolate one of the material's known effects (though it would not work for any of it's undiscovered effects).

For example, the raw material plant called Blueleaf had the intrinsic effects Damage Stamina, Restore Health, Fortify Sneak and Damage Mana. Two of those effects were good, and two of them were not so good. If I "compounded" (basically served it raw) it in a tisane without Processing it first, chances were good that I'd get at least one bad effect as well as one good effect from it. I might get a tea that would restore my health but also damage my stamina at the same time. Using the Process function to isolate only those effects I wanted by grinding it or boiling it or compressing it or distilling it would make sure that if I were aiming to get a potion that would restore my health and nothing else, that's what I would get. 

_:It's a bit of a chore to figure out what process function isolates what effect with which material, though,:_ I thought as I labored through the tedious process of entering a "known" material (that is, one that I had discovered all of the properties of) into my Process screen and selecting either and either grind, distill, compress or boil to see which effect it isolated. 

Once I'd Processed enough materials into ingredients with the isolated effects I was looking for, I could then go to my Compound Screen and pick between three and five processed ingredients with the desired effect and try to Compound it into a recipe. I say try to, because it wasn't so straightforward as one would think. Different ingredients had different elemental affinities, I was told, and some of them simply did not mix well together. I had been told that I was better off just following the recipes rather than wasting ingredients trying it out on my own.

Once I had the three wind-based processed ingredients for a Restore Health potion distilled I entered them into the menu drop downs on my Compound Screen and selected "Compound." There was a small progress bar while the ingredients were loaded and mixed, then my shield dinged at me to let me know that it had been created successfully.

_:Lucky for me, the shield saves any crafting recipes I buy or discover recipes in its internal files!:_ I thought.

I could get recipes by either buying a book of alchemy recipes from a vendor and crafting it once with my shield to learn it, or I could acquire a potion of some type or another and use my Shield's Analyze function to analyze the potion's ingredients. After the shield learned what was in it, all I would need to do is get the right ingredients and make the compound. There was a catch, of course. My alchemy shield at Common level was fine for for the weak variants of most every-day potions like Restore Health (weak) and Damage Strength (weak). If I wanted to make higher-level potions, or process more exotic materials to isolate higher-level effects like Invisibility or Fortify Intelligence (which were rare) I needed to increase my Alchemy Shield's rarity. 

_:But it's fine for now,:_ I thought as I hit the compound button to try out my new recipe. _:I can worry about higher-level stuff later.:_

I smiled happily. I could make potions now!

"Hey," I said, suddenly feeling like an utter moron for not having noticed sooner. "When I use my shield to make ingredients and items. I saves them. In an inventory. Like... I don't have to carry them, they just disappear into hammerspace until I need them. Ye gods, why must I continuously feel like an idiot in this world?"

"What's the matter this morning?" Gyousou said, looking at my defeated face again.

"Only that I skipped over something heinously obvious and I could have made my life much easier."

"Well try to look at it this way," Raphtalia said. "It'll be much easier from now on."

I sighed and continued with my alchemy. I was still missing a few ingredients for more of my basic recipes for beginners, and it would be wise of me to go out into the field with a fully stocked array of potions because we still did not have a Healer.

_:That reminds me that I also need to look into magic lessons,:_ I thought, adding it to my mental checklist of things that I needed to get done before we left the city.

"I wonder if it works that way for all of the items I process using my shield," I mused while I processed raw materials into ingredients to get a feel for what did what. "If I use my cooking shield to process food will it store it so I don't need to lug around a lot of supplies with me?"

It was certainly worth it to find out!

"It looks like I have a few errands to run around town today before we head out," I said while I continued to process with my shield. "I need to find an apothecary and get some ingredients, so that my shield can learn what they are and add them to the list of things that it knows. Same for cooking, I need some recipe books and some supplies for the recipes, I want to see if the shield will store the food that it cooks the same way it stores items that it makes. If so, that will save an enormous load of weight off all our backs." 

I finished processing the last of my ingredients and changed my shield over to Coin Shield, inserting all of the silver-pieces that the king had reluctantly given to me the day before. As I had done the first time, I converted some of the silver coins to copper and filled up my decoy purse, making it look like I carried the whole of my funds on my belt. Gyousou noticed what I was doing and gave me a small, pleased nod of approval.

"I also need to stop by Oyaji's weapon shop and pick up my new suit of armor," I said as I played with my coins. "I want to also try a magic shop too. I have the most of the trick of reading the language of this world, I should be almost to the point where I just need some basic instruction in theory and practical magic to get me started."

With my shopping list in hand, I set out to the busy marketplace. I didn't plan to come back to this wretched place until I absolutely had to, so I wanted to get what I was going to need before I left. I stopped at a cookery stall for some cooking utensils and spices, then browsed the selection of recipe books, looking for something in my budget. While I was making up my mind on one I was bumped into by a young thief who tried to lift my coin-purse. I caught him in Shield Prison and used Rope Shield to tie him up.

"Hey!" I snapped at him as he struggled, glaring at me. "I don't appreciate being stolen from little thief."

The boy, he couldn't have been more than twelve, was distressingly thin with white hair that had what looked like black stripes like a tiger in it and clear ice blue eyes. A hanjuu, and one that was enslaved.

"Lemme go!" he growled at me, scowling. 

I was a bit torn. I knew this country wasn't exactly kind to the hanjuu, if Raphtalia and her kin were anything to judge by. If I turned him in, they'd probably whip him and he didn't look strong enough to take the lashes without it killing him. He was so skinny, despite being oddly lanky and well-built for a boy his age. He had that feral mistrustful look in his eyes, that I recognized from having seen it in the mirror when I looked in my own. Like he was just expecting the world to knock him down then kick him while it had him on the ground.

"I wasn't stealing!" he snapped at me.

"Oh so I suppose your hand wound up in my coin purse by accident then?" I said, crossing my arms and rolling my eyes.

He leaned in and said quietly

"I was trying to slip you a secret. I want to help, Shield Hero."

I blinked in surprise. Help? Me? Who'd wanna help me?

"You're the Shield Hero right?" he said. "My people look up to you. I wanna help you out, but our faith is forbidden here in Melromarc. The only religion allowed is the Church of the Three Saint-Heroes, and the Shield ain't one of them."

I paused, and reached in my pocket to see if he'd actually tried to slip me a note like he'd said, and to my everlasting surprise, there was one there! It was badly written with atrocious spelling, but the kid was a slave so i was a little surprise he could write at all. Or maybe it came from someone else, and he was just sent to deliver it. Either way...

I read the note.

_The Three Saint-Heroes Church wants to erase the Shield Hero and prevent him from reaching his full power out of jealousy and prejudice against the beast people who revere him. They're hiding all of the information about how to get stronger in a hidden vault below the altar of the Dragon Hourglass. Go to the Northern Chapel and sneak into the basement, then follow the door with a hexagon on it and it will lead you to hidden knowledge kept away from even the other three Heroes. Go, and seize your destiny._

_Signed,_

_The Friends of the Shield_

"Huh," I said. "You know anything about this Friends of the Shield, kid?"

The boy scowled and looked down sullenly. He was either a catspaw that someone had hired to slip me the note, or he was an agent in disguise and wasn't going to tell me anyway. I shrugged and let him go. His story checked out, and it looked like he was trying to do me a favor. I'd look into it if nothing else. That Church and its crummy religion had always seemed really really fishy to me. I wasn't overly fond of its clergy either. Then again, this could be a trap too. I would be that they'd love to have a reason to lock me up in thier cells under the church, especially since I'd assaulted thier clergy last time I was there. 

_:But on the other hand, Raphtalia's told me that the hanjuu of this world genuinely do revere the Shield Hero. It was why she'd wanted to work with me so badly despite my cranky temperament. Maybe they really are just trying to help me out.:_

Either way, I was curious about it, if nothing else. They didn't know about my Stealth Shield so even if I snuck in, chances were good that they wouldn't know I was there. I didn't see the harm in having a look, and if I did find some interesting information then it would be a win.

_:And speaking of interesting information, I still have those magic lessons to collect.:_


	25. Lessons, Shopping and Gossip (in that order)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Spends Her Money (Because What Kind of an MMO Would It Be If You Didn't Spend Most of Your Time Faffing About in Town, Buying Stuff?)

The next shop I came across was the magic shop and I hesitated a bit before going in. I remembered the reception I'd gotten the _last_ time I'd come to make a purchase, and I was not looking forward to more of the same. 

_:Still, the old lady did give me a chance in the end... Sort of.:_ I thought to myself, mostly to give me some confidence.

"Greetings!" an elderly voice called out, but it was a man's voice. "Welcome to Set a Spell!"

"Hello," I said looking around apprehensively for the mean middle-aged witch who'd been such a pain the last time I'd been here. 

The interior looked the same, so clearly I was in the same shop I'd went to before. I recognized the man behind the counter however, it was Portius, the mage from Lute Village whom I'd paid to have reading lessons from!

"Oh!" I said in surprise. "I wasn't expecting to see _you_ here..." 

I wondered if it was a good time to bring up those reading lessons I'd paid for and hadn't gotten a chance to collect. 

"My family and I evacuated Lute Village when the Calamity struck. My wife is expecting and can't move very fast and we have two little ones," the older man said seriously. "We would not have made it out alive without you. You have my deepest gratitude for staying behind and helping. If there's anything I can do--"

"Actually, I've been having trouble deciphering this text," I said quickly.

Something must have broken inside of me, because hearing words of thanks made me nervous, like I expected the world to come crashing down.The shop-keep seemed to have sensed my nervousness for he dove right into my magic lesson, giving me a firm grounding in magical theory. 

Magic was based on six elements in this world. Four of them I was already used to from media in my world; earth, air, fire and water and in addition in this world there was as well as light and dark magic. The whole world possessed a magical field, much like the magnetic field in my own world. A mage was someone with the ability to attune to that field and move and shape its forces to their will by calling upon what they called Heaven's Law, which wasn't very much like the Heaven's Law of the world of 12 Kingdoms. The Heaven's Law of this world seemed to mostly have to do with the way the Divine Forces interacted with the material world. 

A "spell" was really nothing more than the process by which a mage bound the magic they had attuned to to fulfill a specific set of functions. I was surprised to discover, once the master mage got into things, that it was really a lot more mathy than something mystical and esoteric. It rather resembled algebra or geometry than the traditional spellcasting that I thought of when I thought of magic. Most mages without any great formal training cast spells by rote, that was, they had a few formulas that they'd memorized and they simply changed a limited number of variables (which was, I assume, how magic crystals were even possible) but a mage who had mastered the theory behind magic had less limitations on the feats of magic they were able to perform.

"You grasp things very quickly, young lady," Portius complimented me when he'd finished explaining the basics of theory and practice.

"Thank you," I said, eager now to try out my new fireball spell.

As a final service to me, Portuis kindly revealed my elemental affinities to me. Affinity was the sort of magic that a mage could access and manipulate easily and the more they practiced with the magic they had an affinity for the higher their attunement to it would be and the more of that kind of magic they could channel. A mage strong in Fire would be weak to Water Magic, a mage strong in Earth would be weak to Wind Magic and a mage strong in Light would be weak to Dark Magic. Heaven's Law in that world decreed that no mage could master all elements. If a mage had an affinity for one or two elements, then they would suffer a lack of affinity or even a density for its opposing element. It was a sensible balance to my mind... however, I would be willing to bet that my Legendary Shield had a way to bypass or ignore that law. 

"...but even if it does," the magic-master replied when I told him of my theory. "You would be better advised to concentrate on only a few elements and ignore their opposites. The higher your attunement to an element, the better you will be able to manipulate and control it."

I nodded, listening to the wisdom of his teaching. 

:Can't wait to bump up my elemental affinity using my Shield!: I thought with anticipation.

The Magic Menu had an option to level up my base magic power just like I could level up base defense and I could hardly wait to _finally_ master something that would let me attack! I mean, being a tank and having a badass shield was great and all, but there were time when I girl just wanted to get on with things!

My main affinity was Earth Magic, but I also had a lesser affinity for its adjacent elements of Fire and Light Magic, making me a Quarter-aligned person. Earth, besides having the ability to lob around large chunks of rock or make waves of sand and even grow plants, also boosted defense and had a butt-ton of protective spells in its arsenal, which I assumed was why I was aligned with it. Fire magic started with a basic flame spell and went all the way up to huge nuke spells, but they were limited by how much a mage was initially able to channel. My shield could bump up my base magic stat if I chose to invest some points in it. Light magic held all the healing spells and held the additional benefit that every healing item and healing aura I had or made would be much more effective. 

The teacher tutored me until lunchtime, going over the basics of my beginners primers and answering my questions, then we practiced the first few spells for each of my elements, Call Flame, Stoneskin, and Magelight. Wielding magic was interesting, most of it was in getting the variables all accounted for within the correct framework, which was really what took up the majority of the cast time, gathering up mana from the Worlds Field, attuning it to the element of the spell you wish to cast and then executing the spell by powering it with attuned mana. Mages used chants mostly as mnemonic devices and because they believed that they worked.

"There's one or two other matters I wanted to ask you about since I'm here to gain information," I said.

"Ask away," my teacher said in a pleased tone. 

"I've seen slaves and slave dealers here," I said bluntly. "Though it seems that the State _officially_ frowns on the use and selling of slaves, it looks like most of them are hanjuu."

"Hanjuu?" he asked. "A word from your world?"

"From _a_ world," I replied, letting him think it was so. "I had a question about those slave-marks. They are not permanent?"

"No, they can be deactivated and removed, though the process by someone who is not the one who first put it on them is both tricky and dangerous. One must be a high-level slave-tamer to possess such an ability."

"I assume, since the slaves are considered to be commodities that are bought and sold, that these slave marks are transferable?"

The teacher frowned in disapproval but answered.

"Naturally, though again, it takes a high-level practitioner."

"I see." 

I mulled it over a bit, thinking about my slave tamer shield, and the mark-unlocking minigame and what it might mean if all of the slaves I saved were automatically transferred to my party. It was something to consider for the future. I changed the subject.

"I wish to know a little more of the geography of this world," I said. "Where do these slaves come from? Is there a place that has a mostly hanjuu population just as this kingdom has a human population?"

"Yes," my teacher replied. "The kingdom to the north, Schildfreiden, is mostly populated by beastpeople, or demi-humans as we often call them. The human population is the vast minority there, and many humans are kept as slaves it is said. The particular type of demi, whether wolf or bear or horse or deer or squirrel depends on the region. Shieldfrieden is nearly three times the size of our kindgom and only has avoided being swallowed up by the human ability for wielding magic being higher than that of the demis, who rather _are_ magic than _have_ magic."

"There's four kingdoms," I said next. "This one, Schildfrieden, and what are the other two?"

"Siltwelt to the west, who revere the White Kirin, and Chidori to the east who reveres the Blue Dragon," my teacher answered promptly. "It is said that Chidori is another human-dominated kingdom, and that Siltwelt is mixed in population, with human's and Demis making up equal portions of the population."

I nodded, filing it away in my memory.

"You wouldn't also happen to know where I could get some more information about the Hourglass of the Dragon would you?" I asked next. 

There was something about what that kid had told me earlier this morning that was bugging me and I wanted to confirm it.

"According to rumors, there's supposedly a book of legends hidden away in a secret chamber in the church," the teacher replied with an arched brow. "But only the clergy has access to it."

"And where does the clergy keep this book?" I asked with feigned nonchalance.

The eyebrow raised even further.

"There's supposed to be passages as well as cells hidden away under the church, and one of these is a vault, guarded night and day by the Knights of the Temple."

"Why would they hide it away beneath the Church?" I asked curiously.

"No-one knows, really," the mage said. "I myself have run across some references in ancient texts that are now... let us say not widely available."

They were on the banned list, is what I heard.

"They speak of Ancient Gods that guard the Four Cardinal Points, great monsters sealed away and of great temples lost to time holding powerful treasures. I've heard stories of Heroes and of the end of the world," he said. "It seems as though the old stories have all been lost, perhaps on _purpose_. After all, you can't have a Three Saint-Heroes Church with Four Heroes in it."

"I see," I said. "Thank you, sir, for being so helpful and informative."

I exited the shop feeling quite pleased and happy, and deeply anticipating getting out of town so that I could try it my other spells out without worrying about hitting anyone with a random fireball spell. 

_:That kid from earlier today must have been talking about that book hidden away in the Vault.:_

I made my way next over to the apothecary, not the herb vendor I'd attacked with a collection of orange balloon demons my first day there, but an actual shop inside of a building. 

"Greetings! I---oh, it's _you_ ," the shop-greeter at the gate calling out the shops wares and high quality, frowned at me.

"Good afternoon," I said, adopting a pleasant tone that I in no way felt.

"Sorry, shop's closed, lunch break," the shop keep, some uppity chit of about twenty, said rudely.

I debated the trouble I wanted to make over it, and decided she should just reap what she sowed.

"That's fine," I said, still keeping my tone pleasant. "I was only browsing to compare prices, I'll go and spend my whole bag full of silver elsewhere."

I hefted up my bulging coin-purse to show her just so that she'd regret her hasty decision, and turned immediately on my heel and walked away before she could say another word. Treatment like that irritated me, but it was nice to get a little of my own back. I wandered down the street looking for another herb and apothecary shop and almost passed a tiny house converted into a shop because it was tucked between two much larger establishments and set back from the street a bit. The sign advertised it as Herbella's Sachet. It looked like a neat enough little place, it had window boxes and a brightly painted door, the steps were swept clean and the brass was polished. I walked up the steps and pushed open the door. 

"A customer!" I heard a voice exclaim in surprise and delight. "Welcome! Welcome!"

A thin, cheery woman of about thirty-five, accompanied by a thirteen-year-old girl, each dressed in a matching dress with a neat little apron that had the logo on the sign outside appeared. The interior of the shop was as clean and tidy as any woman could wish. The shelves that lined every wall and all available space were well lit and lined with jars that had been clearly labeled not only with the contents but with a date-marker. The alchemy tools were attractively arranged, with the most expensive to the front, of course. Not an inch of space had been wasted, as there were bundles of dried herbs, also neatly marked, hanging from the ceiling but over all it didn't feel cramped nor cluttered because everything was neatly arranged. It was a small place, but I immediately felt at home. 

"Hello," I said, surprised to find a genuine smile stretching across my face at the woman's obvious delight in seeing me.

"Greetings and welcome to Herbella's," the young teenager said, by rote when her mother nudged her.

"We may not have the lowest prices, but we have the highest quality, and our customer service is without equal," the older woman hastened to reassure me.

"Well, you couldn't possibly be any _worse_ ," I said dryly. 

I presented the mother with the list I had made of all of the greyed-out ingredients for the potions that I had beginners recipes for. It was a long list because I was trying to grow by Alchemy Shields baseline knowledge bank without breaking my bank.

"I would like to purchase as much as you can sell me of each of these raw materials."

I handed her my list of herbs and raw, unprocessed materials. 

"I think it might not matter so much if it's a little bit old," I added. "To be honest, I'm mostly using it all for practice, so if you have older stock to unload that hasn't gone bad yet and are willing to give me a discount on it, I'd be happy to buy it."

"How much of each sort were you looking to buy?" she asked curiously.

I paused and approximated the size of a portion of raw herb that I used for processing and said

"Let's see. There's four types of process, and the first go is usually a wash since I'm not very high level yet..." I did some mental arithmetic. "Twelve portions of each type like this in weight."

Herbella's eyes widened in delight. I was apparently speaking her language.

"Also," I continued. "I'll want some alternate recipes for potions I already make with different ingredients. I'm going to be atraveling around, and herbs that are common in one place might not be so common in another."

Mother and daughter together both looked delighted, beaming happily at me. The daughter bustled about the store gathering up all of the bundles of herbs I'd asked for, as well as bottles of spirits and vials of essences, some thin books bound in cheap, thick paper. The mother very carefully catalogued each item not only on a receipt for me, but also in her master book of store supplies. I reviewed the receipt, checked it against my list, and tallied up the amount including the discount that she had given me on the herbs that were almost at the end of their potency, and found the prices to match. I nodded in a pleased manner, changed my shield to the Coin Shield and pulled out solid silver coins to lay out on the counter.

You're that Shield Hero!" the girl gasped, sounding dismayed.

"I am," I said evenly, meeting her eyes and daring her to say anything about it.

"You're the one who raped his companion," the daughter said only to be quickly shushed by her mother.

"I didn't do it," I replied gruffly, really tired of hearing about it.

"The king says you did it," the daughter insisted.

"The king's an idiot," I said.

I changed my shield over to my mortar shield and started popping the herbs I'd just bought into it one by one and hitting the Process button. Little dings and the sight of options that had previously been closed to me lighting up was a very nice thing to look at.

"Your shield just... _makes_ the stuff, without even having to boil it down or keep an eye on things?" the girl demanded next. 

"Yeah," I said absently, tabbing over to the Compound menu, selecting my first three processed ingredients and mixing up my very first potion. 

"I wish it were that easy for _me_ ," the daughter grumbled.

"Now now, if it were easy there'd be no point in anyone having a special skill," the mother frowned pointedly at me. 

I ducked my head a bit by reflex. My shield really did make things pretty easy. When it wasn't being difficult that is.

"Life's a game until it's not," I said, with a small bow as I left the shop.

I'd checked the apothecary off my list of errands for that day, next stop was Oyaji's weapon's shop. I walked to the now familiar area and the little bell in front of the door tinkled as I entered.

"Hello there, Shield Lad!" the owner greeted me with gruff good cheer. "I herd the story about Lute Village from some of the local guard. Good work! I knew you had it in you!"

I couldn't help smiling a bit. I felt good and warming inside to be treated like a person and not a criminal, to have someone who believed in me enough to check the story for facts first.

"I missed out on the Main Boss," I said with a small pang of regret at the loss of a prize. "But I did manage to hold off the swarm so the villagers could evacuate. Though when the knights finally showed themselves I have to admit that I didn't think much of the cavalry."

I related the incident of how they'd nearly lit my new girl on fire.

"...But I suppose they came around in the end," I said, giving them a grudging credit. "On another note, how did those materials I gave you work out? Did you manage to make a new set of armor for me?"

The Oyaji grinned widely, walked over to a tall, locked wardrobe cabinet nearby, unlocked it, and opened it with a little flourish. There inside was arrayed a set of armor that was all fur trim and leather. It looked like something that some barbarian king might wear when he came down from the mountains to pillage villages, raze farms and make off with the women.

"Oh... my..." I said, trying desperately to hide my dismay.

If I wore that armor, people really were going to think that I was a criminal. 

_:Think of the stats Yuka. The staaaats....:_

I used my observe skill on the armor and realized that it gave me a plus ten bonus to overall defense and enhanced the range of my healing aura. My opinion of the armor he'd made for me abruptly changed. It might deal damage to my sense of aesthetic, but I could hardly be displeased with the boost to my stats. I tried it on for size, and it fit comfortably, though it was heavier than I was accustomed to wearing. The fighting style I'd trained with under the king of Kou had relied heavily upon agility, so I was accustomed to maximizing that by wearing light armor or no armor at all. Being a heavy tank with all the trimmings was going to take a little getting used to.

"Thank you," I said sincerely to him when he'd finished fussing with the fit and I moved around a bit to test out the lay of it. "This is a fine suit of armor, even if I do look like I'm going to retreat to my mountain lair."

I said that last bit with a teasing note, to reduce the sting of my words. 

"It suits you lad," Oyaji said with a broad smile as I told over the coin for the price we'd agreed upon.

"I don't know if I mentioned it but... thanks for being decent," I said. "Now I've got more errands left to run today, so I must be off."

"Good luck to you lad," Oyaji said, waving in parting as I left his shop. 


	26. The Hidden Library

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Follows a Clue Down a Rabbithole and Recruits a Reluctant Party Member

"Isn't that your Stealth Shield?" Gyousou asked suspiciously when he came back to our room at the inn from running his own errands.

I Didn't bother trying to hide it, or quickly change it to another shield, it wouldn't have worked with Gyousou anyway. The trick with him was to proceed as if you weren't up to something, even if you really were. Plausible deniability was the key here. I wasn't planning on sneaking out to investigate a questionable lead by breaking into a Church that hated me in order to steal thier secrets... I was just innocently upgrading me Shield. That was it.

Boosting a common-level Shield up to an Uncommon cost 1000 EP, which at a rate of every Common Sheild only dropping 200 EP every time I managed to max out and reaset the Mastery, meant that I had to Mastery-reset either five individual shields, or one shield five times to get enough EP to bump up a single Shield's Rarity. Luckily, with as much as I'd used my Alchemy Shield lately, i had enough points, barely. The boost in stats would certainly help my secret mission that night. I was unlikely to be able to bribe or trick one of the clergy into giving me the information I as after. No way would they let me at it if I asked nicely, not with the way things had went down the last time I'd been in there. The way I saw it, I had little choice but to sneak in and copy down the information they were trying to hide from me. It wasn't even stealing, not really!

_:I get to try out my Assassin's Creed stealth skills again,:_ I thought in anticipation.

I'd originally been trained as an assassin after all, and that training had included a little skullduggery. I was loath to let my hard won skills go to waste.

"Ye-es," I said to him as I selected the option to Use my remaining EP to purchase an upgrade in Rarity to the Stealth Shield. "Even though I'm the tank, there's sometimes an advantage to being stealthy."

I then switched the subject.

"I only got half of my errands done today," I said. "The magic lessons took longer than I'd thought they would and I still want to hit up a sundries store for some more cooking items. It would save on a lot of weight for us to carry if I just made a whole lot of food items with my shield and let my inventory carry them, instead of lugging around supplies and eating demon drops like we've been doing. We still have coin enough."

Gyousou nodded his head absently and went into the bathing chamber to enjoy a bath. He was as fastidious about his own personal cleanliness as any girl could want who would have to hang around and smell him. A few minutes later Raphtalia came in, proudly holding aloft a new accessory she'd bought with her share of the money I'd doled out to her for her to shop with. Later that evening, we all ate around the rooms small table and I brought up another thing that had been on my mind.

"We've weathered the first Calamity well enough," I said. "Though we had help from the City and the Town Guard to mop up the mobs this time. I'm a little more concerned about _next_ time. I think we should look in to making a real, _proper_ party for the next Wave. As it stands, we're unbalanced, and our arrangement is far from optimal. A party of three is fine for smaller mobs and lesser youma, but we need more flexibility. I'm learning magic, but I'd like to pick up at least one other trained mage, perhaps two. We definitely need a healer! I can't really tank effectively without one, certainly not on a boss of any real size. We also need someone for combat at range, especially as it is entirely likely that we'll eventually run into a flying-type of enemy. So. I want to start looking in earnest for some new adventurers to recruit into our party to round out our weaknesses so that we can really begin training and fighting to maximum effectiveness. The sooner, the better."

"Sounds fine, but where will we find such?" Gyousou asked. "Especially given your reputation."

I shrugged.

"Maybe we could try the Adventurer's Guild's Headquarters," Raphtalia said.

I refrained from saying that it would likely be a wasted attempt. No self-respecting adventurer would want to travel with the criminal Shield Hero. Still, I supposed that there was nothing lost by trying. When we were finished with our meal, Raphtalia taught us to play Advent, which was a card game in that world played with a deck a little bit like a full tarot, every person got to pick a set of "court cards" that had special abilities, and then each player took it in turn to draw from a common draw deck that held only number cards, and used thier court cards to score points on another player. It was interesting and I liked it quite a bit once I'd gotten the hang of it.

I waited until later that night after I was certain that Gyousou and Raphtalia were asleep, and then I changed to my Stealth shield in preparation for my outing.

**Stealth Shield+9: Uncommon 9/40**   
**Ability: Stealth, Hawkeye, Listening.**   
**Mastery Lvl: 9**   
**Equipment Bonus: Avoid Detection +.9%**   
**Status Enchant: Perception +3**

I cast one last look back at my companions. The less the knew about my plans, the better. I activated my stealth mode and slipped out into the night.

I ghosted through the dark city streets, paying close attention to the detection gauge that my shield had come with. it allowed me to know when people were actively looking for me, and how close they were to having discovered me. My boosted Perception also allowed me to hear the guards talking much more easily as well as anyone mentioning things at the edges of windows or doorways. I had a shadow gauge too, vaguely reminiscent of the game Thief, that told me how close I was to be revealed by a light source. The inn we'd rented at was only two blocks away from the Church and when I got up around to the edge, I found a series of hand and footholds ala a certain game with Assassins in it, that I could climb up to reach an unguarded window.

_:So far so good,:_ I thought, easing a window open.

When I pinged Hawkeye loose windows and hidden latches lit up blue in my sight as well as revealing nearby enemies in yellow.

_:Don't want to jinx it.:_

I listened carefully to make sure there were no guards present before I slid into the dusty room, my stealth-meter on full, and pulsed out with my Hawkeye again to check for nearby enemies. The room greyed out and sound was strangely muffled for a moment. The guards within range nearby all glowed yellow. I concentrated on them to mark them, then released my Hawkeye. If I held it for too long it started draining my SP, if I drained my SP too much I got headaches and dizziness. The gurad I marked stayed lit up in my vision. it was useful, no doubt but I still needed to be cautious, because it didn't mark out any new guards that came into the area automatically, so there was still the danger that I would bump into an unmarked guard by accident if I wasn't careful. 

Sneaking around in enemy territory with the chance of getting caught around every corner was heart-pounding and nerve-wracking. I spent a lot of my time cursing myself for being a fool for sneaking in needlessly on nothing more than a suspicion. Still, I was committed, and I _strongly_ suspected that the Church was keeping information from me. If this was so, I wanted to know what they were hiding. I didn't trust that king and knowledge was power. I slipped from shadow to shadow. I hated the stairs because it was a bottleneck that left me out in the open with the exception of the long, floor-length curtains that flanked the windows at the landings. I had to dodge a patrol more than once by ducking around the curtains and praying that the rustle didn't give me away.

I made my way slowly and cautiously down and down and down through the levels and hallways of the massive church, pinging my Hawkeye vision regularly to reveal not only the locations of any nearby guards, but also the locations of secret rooms and hidden mechanisms. It was one such mechanism that led me to a secret spiral stair and lock-trapped hallway (with one of those floor puzzles where its like, 'don't step on the red tiles') that took me directly under the Dragon Hourglass. I used my Lockpicking Shield to unlock the obviously-a-vault-door at the end of the hall and found a hidden library.

"Jackpot!" I whispered exultantly to myself.

The room was a large square room located (I judged) under the Dragon Hourglass. There were vaguely standing-man-shaped lumps covered in sheets clustered haphazardly about the room. A curious lift of the nearest sheet revealed a marble statue that looked like the other Hero-statues lining the niches in the grand entryway above. The difference between these and those displayed to the public was that these ones all had _shields_ instead of swords, bows or spears.

_:I knew it!:_ I thought with vindicated triumph. _:The Shield Hero was once deified in the state religion along with the other three Sainted Heroes, but for some reason mine was removed and erased from the faith. They took down the statues and hid them down here, and this proves it. Still... I wonder why? Why would they bother getting rid of only one Hero when, by this evidence they seem to need all four heroes to fight the Calamity?:_

Then I decided that it didn't matter. I wasn't here for their stupid religion, I was here for the information they were keeping from me! 

:Maybe I can find something here that can send me back home to my world!: I thought.

I'd hardly dared to hope before. Hope hurt. I just tried to get through one awful day at a time, just prepare myself to survive so I could make it back home. But if they were hiding something so desperately, maybe there was a way to get back home after all and they were trying to keep it hidden so that the "heroes" they kidnapped from their home worlds didn't demand to leave right away.

I looked around the room again. I couldn't stay here all night, and I likely wasn't going to be able to sneak back down here again. I had to get myself the best chance I could of finding the information I needed. I continued looking around the Hidden Vault to see what else the Church had seen fit to hide and suppress knowledge of. There certainly didn't appear to be piles of treasure! All of the walls were lined with floor to ceiling book-cases. it looked like there was an awful lot of information deemed dangerous or heretical by the new church there in Melromarc.

_:There's an awful lot of books on these shelves,:_ I thought looking around at the bookshelves lining the walls. _:How will I know which one has the information I need?_ :

Then my eyes were caught by two altars placed facing one another in the very center of the room. The altar on the left had a while vial that looked like it was carved from alabaster that glowed with a bright candle-light yellow-white light. The altar across from the vial had a thick, leather tome resting on it that also seemed to glow faintly. The tome looked familiar to me for some reason...

_:I recognize this book!:_ I thought in shock as I approached it.

It was the Record of the Four Cardinal Weapons, the very same book that I'd picked up in the library that fateful day, the same book that had transported me from my world into this one. 

_:If anything's going to tell me something useful, it's **got** to be this one!:_ I thought. _:There's probably a reason that they're keeping it a secret, even from their precious, sainted other Heroes, and I'm going to find out what it is.:_

I changed shield to my Book Shield, pulled the glowing Record of the Cardinal Weapons off from its place on the altar in the center of the room (after I'd carefully checked it for booby traps first, I knew that all those hours playing Tomb raider woud come n handy). I set the Record of the Four Cardianl Weapons on top of my book shield and selected Book Copy from my menu. A progress bar appeared in my HUD off to the right and started slowly filling up.

_:Copying the book will take longer than just taking it, but it also means that I won't get caught red handed stealing their Holy relic if they ever do catch me,:_ I thought.

While I was waiting for that book to copy into my records I decided to look around a little more to see what else it was that he Church had deemed fit to hide away.

_:Hmm. **That's** interesting,:_ I thought when I noticed something I'd overlooked in my first hurried examination of the room.

I had missed it the first time, but in the niches between shelves in each of the cardinal directions there was a statue of each hero wielding a cardinal weapon. There was a statue showing Hero with a Shield posed in the north, a Spear in the south, a Sword in the east and a Bow in the west. There was also a small pedestal in front of each statue and on each pedestal rested a very fancy-looking leather-bound locked book with jewels and gilt lettering on it. In front of the Spear Hero in the south, there was a red leather book with a big ruby on the front cover carved in the shape of a stylized bird with long flaming tail-feathers and a golden crest on its head surrounded by gold-leaf flames drawn on the cover. It looked like a depiction of a phoenix.

_:I wonder...:_ I thought to myself. _:Could this be the same as...:_

I'd always been a fan of isekai fantasy books, or least I _had_ been before the Twelve Kingdoms had happened to me. Any true isekai fan knew the greats of the genre, including one of the best known manga/ animes... _Fuushigi Yuugi_. Anyone who knew that story would _immediately_ recognize where this was going. Just to confirm my hunch, I looked around at the other books. Sure enough, just as there was a fire-bird on the red leather book in the south, there was a water-dragon in the on a blue leather-bound book in the east, kirin on a yellow leather-bound book in the west and a turtle with a long snake-neck in the north on a green leather-bound book. 

_:These are the Four Beast Gods; Suzaku, Seiryuu, Byakko and Genbu!:_ I thought in amazement. _:Except that I though Byakko was a white tiger... Oh well, I guess there are regional differences. I kirin does seem to fit in with the theme of mystical animals better.:_

As soon as my shield informed me that it had finished copying the Record of the Four Cardinal Weapons I immediately put it back on its place on its altar and grabbed the nearest of the four books, the red Book of Suzaku and started copying it into my Shields records with Book Copy. My heart was pounding as I urged my shield to copy faster. It would be really, really bad news if I were caught sneaking around in the secret vault below the Church, but I _desperately_ wanted to know what was in those books. I couldn't take them with me for I would definitely get charged with theft. My Shield felt like it took forever to copy, but slowly I got the Book of Suzaku, the Book of Seiryuu, the Book of Byakko and my shield was in the midst of copying the Book of Genbu when I heard a noise behind me.

I immediately ducked into the shadows of behind the niche featuring the Hero of the Shield and held my breath, praying that no-one would find me. There was a soft scuffle of feet and something about the noise told me that this person wanted to be found as little as I did. Furtively, I carefully peeked over to see the sight of a young, slight form wrapped in a shadowy cloak with a cowl.

_:That definitely is not one of the guards,:_ I thought.

The cloaked figure was short, very short, and it's slightness told me that, unless there were dwarves or gnomes in this world (which I had not seen) this person was a child. How in the world had a _child_ managed to sneak into a heavily guarded church? 

The child approached the center of the room and his cloak slid back, revealing two roundish pointed ears like a tiger's upstanding from a head with white and black hair. His back was to me as he walked straight to the middle of the room. As he passed me I saw his face in profile and gasped

"Hey! You're that boy from earlier," I whisper-hissed, not wanting to alert the guard. 

He whirled to face me, his own face a mask of fear and his hand flew out and knocked the Book of the Four Cardinal Weapons from off of the pedestal (where I'd put it back after I had finished copying it) and it fell to the stone floor with a heavy thump.

We both froze in place as we heard guards in the corridor go on alert. One of them called to another that he'd thought he heard something and was going to go and check it out. Crap. The little white-haired boy didn't hesitate. He darted up to the two altars facing one another in the center of the room. Ignoring the book, he snatched up the small, white alabaster vial that glowed with a holy golden light and stuffed it into his cloak. Then he whirled and darted back towards the door, slipping out into the hall and beyond my view with barely any sound.

_:That little **brat**!:_ I thought in offended amazement.

He'd done this on _purpose_! He had deliberately bumped into me to give me that note, just so I ask around about the hidden lore stashed away under the Church in the hope that I'd break in. He must have been casing the place, waiting for me to enter and unlock the Vault for him using my cheaty Lockpicking Shield which could unlock anything if I had enough skill invested in it. He'd done this so I would clear the way, and he could follow me, snatch what he'd come for and leave me here to take the fall for him!

_:Oh **hell** no!:_ I thought in outrage. _:I'm going to track that little brat down and make him cry tears of blood for setting me up!:_

The guards, naturally did come to investigate the room. They saw the door unlocked and hanging open and called out for additional guards to search the place. I ducked down and put my cowl over my face, playing musical chairs with all of the various objects littering the room, and using my hawk-eye to keep tabs on my searchers. I just barely managed to make it to the doorway, but of course there were guards there.

I knew better than to give myself away as the Shield Hero by using any of my shields or shield-skills on them. Instead, I just ducked down assassin-style and darted right in between them, rushing past them towards the shadows before they could reach out and grab me. I got lucky for a change and my cloak didn't even get caught on anything as I passed them by. 

The guards gave chase, of course, but I used my skills to quickly break line of sight, then dodged around in the shadows for a while, throwing coins at various objects to create distractions to send the guards searching in the wrong directions. It was near the prison cells under the church that I ran across a spare set of Templar Armor hanging up and got an idea. 

:I wonder if it's possible..."

I pressed my shield up against the silly helmet and prayed. My prayers were answered when my shield pinged at me. 

Sheild Unlocked! Disguise Shield.

**Disguise Shield+1: Uncommon 0/40**   
**Ability: Disguise, Tracking**   
**Mastery: 1**   
**Equipment Bonus: +.1% Perception**

I looked down at myself, the rest of me looked like a common guardsman and when I looked in the mirror, my face looked completely nondescript. It was like the hanshin with Kourin all over again only my face didn't feel like it was being melted with acid. I blended in with the other faceless Templars searching the rest of the underground catacombs to discover that it was a swarm of activity, everyone running around in confusion shouting questions and contradictory orders. 

A few officers tried to establish some semblance of order but the general commotion drowned them out. I decided to try out my new Shield's Tracking Ability. 

_:Drop a coin to your Witcher!:_ I celebrated internally as I looked at the glow in the dark yellow footprints making off into the night. 

The farther I went while still keeping track of the footprints, the higher my proficiency gauge went up. I had to go slow, but at the same time I couldn't concentrate on it to the exclusion of everything else because it was the middle of the night and there were unsavory individuals out who would think nothing of hitting me over the head and selling me into slavery. I was sure that slave dealer would be delighted to have me back as his guest. 

I tracked the bright gold footprints over fences and along window ledges, across rooftops and through back alleys. 

_:This kid must really know his way around town!:_ I thought, partly impressed. 

Some of the twists and turns his path had taken would have put an acrobat through a workout! I followed the trail through the bad neighborhood, and into the worse neighborhood, and finally, into the decrepit slums that looked like Help would have been a local call. 

"Man, this place left 'wrong side of the tracks' behind half a mile back!" I muttered to myself as I consistently pinged Hawkeye to keep an eye out for trouble and hopefully keep from getting mugged (or worse).

At last found a shack that was practically falling in on itself by the tiny trickle of foul-smelling sludge that called itself a riverside in that area. The tracks ended there. It had only one visible exit, but I was betting that it actually led to some underground catacomb. I tried the door anyway, unlocked it and slid in quietly, hoping to sneak up on my quarry and demand to know just what the hell it was he thought he'd been doing tricking me that way. The shack was empty and so I looked around using my eagle vision and found the hidden entrance into the sewer. 

I sighed then... down I went. I continued tracking the footprints, they were really the only light in the now dark tunnel, and tried very hard not to think of all of the ways this could go horribly wrong. By this point it was late into the night and I dreaded the thought that my companions might find me gone in the morning and start to worry. I was surely going to hear a tongue-lashing from Gyousou at least, I knew he disapproved of my sneaky tendencies. 

_:Man! These tunnels go on forever!:_ I thought to myself.

My instincts screamed that I was probably walking into a trap but I was in it now and wasn't going to give up and back out. The footprints of my quarry stopped at a dead end. High above my head there was a circle, but there was no ladder nearby or anything.

_:He probably pulled it up behind himself just in case he was followed,:_ I thought. 

Good thing for me I had a shield with a rope skill or I'd have had to turn back. I switched shields to Rope Shield grappling-hook gunned up to the hatch like batman and pushed it open. When I emerged from underground, I was surprised to find myself out of the city itself. I looked around to get my bearings, and saw that I was right at the outer edge of a fine estate, the kind that wealthy merchants or aristocrats had to escape the heat of the city in the summer. Hidden away from view by a copse of trees as a run-down set of slave barracks out in the farthest field. The footprints led there. I stealthed over to the slave-barracks (what else would the be?) following the footprints and they finally led me to the most run-down decrepit-looking shanty that I'd ever seen before. My quarry was still awake, I could see his back through the window-hole of the shack.

_:It's just a kid!:_ I thought in sympathy. 

Technically, it was two kids. There was my little thief from earlier, and it looked to me like he had an invalid family member. Laid out on the bed was a small form, wrapped entirely in bandages, like a mummy. The person on the bed was tiny, _definitely_ still a child, because I doubted being sick could shrink a person that much. The matching white and black streaked hair that escaped from under the bandages gave away that my thief and the invalid must be related.

I snuck up to the house and quietly let myself in. The boy snarled and reached for a dagger, turning and throwing it at me in one smooth motion. I was really lucky I was the Shield Hero and my shield protected me, or I wouldn't have been long for this world. Even with the ding, the knife still lodged itself in the wall after being deflected. 

_:This kid's got a really good arm!:_ I thought, deeply impressed. 

In fact... I was looking for that kind of aim. Daggers could do amazing critical damage. I needed a fighter with a ranged weapon.

"I don't mean you any harm," I said quickly. "We met earlier, or don't you remember?"

The boy scowled at me. He had a very serious face and hard eyes. It looked like he scowled a lot. Then again, he was a slave so that wasn't surprising.

"I gotta hand it to you, Kid," I said, keeping myself between him and the door as he eyed me with the wary eyes of a predator just waiting for his prey to show weakness. "You set me up pretty good!"

"It's your fault for falling for it," he said in challenge. "Don't be stupid next time."

I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Watch it brat, or I won't be so nice. It turns out your little tip gave me a pretty good prize as far as I'm concerned. So we both got something we wanted. Trouble for you is, you still set me up and I'm not the sort of person who'd let something like that slide, so hand over the bottle you stole so I don't get blamed by that stupid Church for taking their precious holy-juice or whatever. They already have it in for me. Now hand it over."

"Too bad," the kid snarled at me. "I need it."

He turned back to the bandage-mummy and passed over that glowing phial. Suddenly, the poor, sick child was wracked with a fit of coughing. It sounded pretty bad.

"What's wrong with the girl?" I demanded. "Must be serious if you're sneaking into a Church to steal miracle-potion."

"What's it to you?" he demanded.

"Fohl," she hissed, looking at me in awe. "I think it's the Shield Hero!"

"I don't care if it's the king himself," the boy grumped. "Drink your medicine, sis."

"Fohl? You stole this?" the bandage-girl looked at him with dismay and a little fear. "You know what they'll do if you're ever caught!"

"You'll die if I don't do _something_ ," he said. "Now drink it up. All of it."

"But...," she mumbled. 

He helped the girl to bring the bottle closer to her pale, parched lips and started to raise it up to drink it when she was wracked again by another fit of coughing. The glowing gold liquid spilled all over her and into the ground of their shack (which promptly started growing grass and flowers and a tree-sprouted up). The boy made a dismayed noise, peering desperately into the bottom of the phial.

"There's only a drop left!" he said in dismay. "It'll have to do."

I interceded before he could try to waste the medicine that was too small a dose to be effective on anything, much less cure whatever the hell whole-body sickness was wrong with his sister. I snatched up the bottle and changed shield to my Alchemy Shield.

The boy snarled ferociously, almost making even me take a step back.

"Give that back, she needs it!" he growled, looking like he'd gladly kill me on the spot. 

"You give her this drop here, and you'll just be wasting it," I said. "Lucky for you, I've got a better way. All I need is a drop."

"Please, Shield Hero," the girl mummified in bandages said. "I'll put my trust in you."

"Don't do that," the boy growled mistrustfully. "She could just be trying to get one over on us!"

The boy looked like he would interfere but the girl, despite all of her frailty, fixed him with a single look and he froze in place... or at least, she looked in his general direction. Playing a hunch I waved a hand before her face no reaction. She was blind. 

"As it happens," I said, my touchy sense of honor rearing up. "I _can_ help you. I've got an Alchemy Shield that lets me analyze any medicine I come across and it gives me the recipe for it. As long as I can get a hold of the ingredients and I have it leveled up enough, I can make it. This drop of elixir won't do you much good if you drink it now, but if you let me analyze it I can get the recipe from it, and then mix up a full dose of it."

"Why should I trust you?" the boy demanded pugnaciously.

"Put it to you this way," I said, dropping the last drop into my shield. "What choice have you got?"

The Analyze menu on my shield popped up with a progress bar that didn't even have a sliver of it taken up. The ETA on that analyze was going to be numbered in weeks instead of hours and days.

"Man, what the heck did you steal?" I muttered in amazement. "This stuff must be powerful enough to bring back the dead!"

"None of your business," the boy muttered mulishly.

I smirked. The analyze function on my shield at least gave me the name of the potion right off the bat.

"Yggdrasil Elixer," I read out loud. 

The other information was hidden from me, but I knew this much about it.

The girl gasped in clear terror as she looked at her brother and was quickly wracked by another fit of coughing. 

"Fohl! You didn't!" she cried out, clearly terrified for him. "If they ever find you and catch you, they'll whip you every day for months and _then_ they'll kill you."

I looked at her in disbelief. Surely not. This boy was twelve if he was a day. No-one would be heartless enough to lash a child his age to death. Certainly not a Church! Right?

_:Then again... they don't seem to be exactly wringing their hands over the fate of the hanjuu in this country either,_ : I thought a bit cynically.

"I couldn't just watch you die," he said quietly. "I'll risk whatever it takes. If I gotta sell myself to another master, or rob a church or kill a dragon. I'll fight anything, any time, any where for your sake. I made a promise to mother and father that I'd always look out for you."

I couldn't ignore the fact that I felt a small tender pang in my heart at his resolute declaration of loyalty towards his sibling. I was an only child myself so I could only image what it must be like, but I couldn't just ignore that.

The boy turned to look at me and said in a quarrelsome tone

"Even if you're telling the truth, how do we know you'll do what you said? How do we know you'll come back?"

"Fair point," I allowed. "Obviously you don't. Just your good luck then that I happen to be a friend in need. As in... I need something from you."

The boy had a dryly cynical look on his face, but under it, I could see the relief as well as the wariness. It looked like he was a kid after my own heart, and would rather have a straight-out contract rather that rely on specious things like trust and emotions.

"It just so happens that I'm a hero, recruiting for my Light Party. I need a ranged fighter."

I looked very very obviously over at the knife embedded in the wall.

"You look like you'll do job," I said. "There is a slight catch however. I have what you might call a trial period. You gotta wear my slave-mark, just so I can be sure about you. I don't want you stabbing me in my sleep after all. Not that I don't trust you and all that."

The boy, to my surprise, nodded cautiously. 

"You gotta take that up with my current Master," he said. "Don't expect he's gonna let me go cheap though. I've been making him good money by fighting in the pit."

_:Geeze! Can they get any worse? This kids not old enough to shave and they're putting him in a fighting pit?!:_ I thought incredulously.

"Well now you're going to make me money," I said out loud. "Or rather... Monster drops, which are better than money to me. Get over here so I can pick your Mark."

The boy frowned in puzzlement as I changed my shield to the Slave-tamer Shield. I activated the slave-mark override system and started the hacking minigame for the girl's slave mark first, as a gesture of good faith. It took a few tries because I had almost no proficiency in it, but in the end, I changed her slave mark to make her as my own slave.

"I'll keep you in my party for now, until I can find some place to take you in while we go out and fight int eh field," I said.

She was way too sick to withstand the rigors of foot travel all day every day.

"Where I go, she goes," the boy said stubbornly.

"I'm going to be marching your dumb ass right into the mouth of hell," I pointed out. "Think of it as payback for setting me up. If you really care about her, I'd suggest you keep her out of it."

"Shield Hero!" the bandage-girl said, blind eyes shining with emotion. "I want to help! I want to help however I can! Fohl does too!"

"No I don't," he muttered.

"Yes you do," she said primly. 

"Fine. I'll wear your mark and fight for you, but you have to compound Atla's medicine as soon as you can, and she gets to come with us so i can keep an eye on her health!"

I paused. I really didn't need to be dragging and invalid everywhere, but she definitely couldn't stay there.

"We'll see about your sister," I temporized. "It depends on how well she travels."

"Agreed then. You make medicine, I kill things for you," he said dryly, his tone insolent.

"Good. Get over here, I want to switch your mark over to me."

The slave-tamer minigame went easier this time and his mark was transferred to my name in seconds.

_:That's surprising!:_ I thought as I got a look at his levels when his mark transfered.

He was already level 22, but he was only just twelve. Raphtalia had told me that the hanjuu of this world matured based on their levels. If that was true, then this kid should look like he was in his twenties and not just twelve. Unless he'd started out with a boost different from normal hanjuu of this world. 

It also explained his unusual strength and agility. His base Attributes must be higher as well.

"Why are you doing this?" he demanded of me. 'Why help both of us out, when you really only need me?"

I paused. Why _was_ I doing this? I didn't gain significantly from it really, he wasn't my only option, and I didn't really owe him anything. Making him cry tears of blood for setting me up was not much of a justification, and rang hollow, even in my own mind. I shook my head, I'd worry about it later. 

_:I'm not going soft,:_ I told myself.

"Come on," I said instead. "Dawn's approaching and we've still got to get back before anyone notices I'm missing."

I'd been out for most of the night and by now no doubt the Church had discovered they were short one bottle of miracle juice and I was short one alibi. Gyousou was going to flip. 


	27. Magic and Sundries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroes Return, Sleep, and Get a Little Work Done

The sun was over the horizon by the time my new ranged fighter, Fohl Faeon, led me through the undercity and back to my hotel. I was surprised to not only see Gyousou and Raphtalia in front of the place looking around, but Ren Amaki, the Sword Hero, as well. He was his usual cool, cucumber self and when he looked over at me it looked like he didn't trust me. 

"There you are!" Gyousou said looking relieved and exasperated. "You were not in your bed this morning, I beg you tell me that the break-in at the church was _not_ you."

"Come on, we need to speak in private," I said, quietly. "Raphtalia, get these kids a bath and a meal, please."

I flicked a glance over at my fellow Hero, who looked back at me with a piercing blue gave fulled with suspicion.

"Amaki," I said shortly. "Good to see you."

He frowned suspiciously at me but said nothing outright. We both knew that everything looked extremely suspicious, but it looked like he was willing to keep his peace on the matter regardless. He looked next down at the obviously-a-slave children that I'd brought back with me from an undisclosed location at an ungodly hour of the morning. He frowned and shook his head then turned and left to go back to his own room. Gyousou meanwhile was looking at me like he was half a heartbeat away from dressing me down like an junior officer gone AWOL int he middle of the street, but I gestured urgently for him to take it inside first. Once we were in the room, Raphtalia herded the dirty, malnourished children toward the bath-room and I flopped down on the nearest bed, exhausted from my night out.

"I suppose you have a satisfactory explanation for my latest near heart-attack, Yuka Sugimoto?" he said in a sharp tone.

In short, explanations were in order and they had better be forthcoming. Quickly.

I sat up and looked over at him seriously, and made my report.

"I did sneack out last night so I could sneak into that church. Pleasedon'tbemad," I said, trying out my version of puppy eyes on him.

Gyousou frowned at me and waited for the rest of my explanation, which was awfully sporting of him.

"And the theft?" he asked pointedly.

"I didn't steal anything," I said. "Nor did I plan on doing so when I went there. I got a tip telling me of a book about my Legendary Weapon, and about these Waves of Cataclysm I've been sent here to fight. Supposedly the Church of the Three Saint-Heroes had hidden it in some secret vault under the hourglass, I thought that that book might tell us all more about the Legendary Weapons and how they work. I have a Shield unlocked that lets me copy down any information in a book like I'm downloading computer files, so my plan was just to sneak in, copy down the information and sneak back out again without anyone being the wiser."

"You and your endless quest for information," he said sounding exasperated. 

"They're keeping something from me Gyousou," I said firmly. "I just don't trust them. There's more going on here with that rotten church and the corrupt king, and I don't want it all hanging me out to dry."

Gyousou's mouth tightened like he would have liked to be able to argue with me but couldn't in all honesty.

"As much as i would like to say that you're being overly paranois or suspicious of things, i have the feeling that in this case your instincts are sharp," he said solemnly. "It was dangerous to do what you did, _especially_ without telling anyone."

I hung my head and admitted honestly

"It was a case of it being easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission."

"I don't hear you begging forgivness," he replied, with a scowl in my direction.

I paused, thinking over my reply and said

"Well in all honesty, I'm not sorry I did it the way I did, exactly. At the time it seemed like the best way to do it, but obviously that's not the case. I'm upset you're mad about it and I don't want to loose your faith in me, so please advise me?"

Gyousou looked a little taken aback by my strange sense of honesty but instead of getting mad at me, he asked instead

"Why did you not feel you could tell me you were planning on sneaking into the church?"

I looked at him blankly and replied.

"Obviously it's because you would have tried to stop me."

"You are the commander in this mission," he replied. "I would have advised strenuously against it, but if you felt it was neccessary I would have allowed it. We could have made precautions."

I looked at him in surprise.

"You've hired me to support you," he said, with a relenting sort of gentleness in his tone. "I cannot do so to the best of my abilities if you will not trust me."

I mulled it over in silence for a good long time, and then felt chagrin and a deep sense of remorse fill me. I lowered my head in sincere apology

"I am sorry for not entrusting you, and for preventing you from doing your work to the fullest. It won't happen again."

He sniffed but appeared to be ready to fogive me since I'd realized what I'd done wrong.

"See that it does not," he said. "Now, we may continue with your debriefing. You snuck into the church with intent to acquire hidden information, then what?"

"I would have just snuck in, copied the book with my shield, and snuck back out, no-one the wiser, but that _brat_ ,excuse me, the cat-bot Fohl _,_ set me up! He planted the information, made it interesting enough that I was bound to follow up on it, and waited around for me to break into the church so that he could follow in my shadow, let me unlock all of the doors and windows for him, then take what he went in there for and leave me there holding the bag!"

"He appears very young," Gyousou replied. "This seems like a lot to take on for a boy his age."

"His sister's sick, and he's pretty desperate," I said. "He needed some miracle medicine hidden in the bottom of the church, and he used me to get to it."

"His sister does not look any healthier," Gyousou noted. 

"She didn't actually take any of it," I said.

I quickly explained about how his sister had spilled the potion before she could drink it, and about how I'd used the analyzer in my Alchemy Shield to start analyzing the Elixer, and our deal for Fohl to fight as my new ranged fighter in exchange for me whipping up a miracle cure for his sister. I finished the tale by saying 

"Once we get Fohl trained up to snuff and working with the rest of us, we'll have nearly a full party. We have a Light-piercing Damage-Dealer in Raphtalia, a Heavy Damage Dealer with your two-handed sword, once Fohl's got some levels under his belt we'll have a ranged damage dealer, all we really need is a good Healer and we'll have a fairly effective Light Party."

"He is a child," Gyousou pointed out in a tone of belabored patience.

"So's Raphtalia, technically," I said, unconcerned. "We'll level him up till he's legal."

"No more sneaking out without telling me," he growled severely at me, fixing me with a gimlet glare that had me suddenly wishing to bow my head in apology. 

It didn't feel like he was threatening me with violence exactly, just that his presence was suddenly so powerful int he room that it was like a weight on me. It was really scary.

"Er, right... I'm sorry," I said shakily. "I won't do it again."

I was honestly too intimidated to even give him any sass. He frowned at me for a moment more, then seemed willing to accept and forgive, for he let the issue go. 

"You have been out all night," he said. "Get some rest. We shall finish our errands here in this town and leave for the countryside to resume gaining expereince tomorrow."

I obediently went to sleep.

* * * 

I woke up sometime mid afternoon to see two freshly washed children in clean new clothes, one of them with fresh clean bandages instead of rags, sleeping together in Raphtalia's bed. There was also a brand new bow and quiver of arrows for the boy as well as light armor for my new fighter. On the table of the room were the remains of what had clearly been a large brunch and I got out of bed to pick them over. I was quite hungry from my night out. 

While I was eating the last remains of the leftovers from the feast I noticed a large pile of groceries on the floor of the room and surmised that Gyousou and or Raphtalia must have gotten the cooking items on my list from the market. Nothing loathe to get some good grinding done on my crafting shields, I sat cross-legged on the floor, switched to my Cooking Shield, and started crafting so that we wouldn't need to carry any extra supplies or to spend money at an inn for quite some time. 

_:The best part about this is that, since I took the points to level up my Cooking Shield to Uncommon, all of the food I'm crafting will have buffs attached to it. Totally win-win!:_ I thought gleefully as I continued to craft away. 

Gyousou and Raphtalia were out, presumably getting the rest of the items on my shopping list, so I settled in and went through the tedious process of evaluating each shield for its potential usefulness before deciding whether or not I was going to level its rarity, or just drain it of all it Proficiency Points to convert to EP so that I could spend that EP on other, more useful, shields. 

At the outside, the Orange Shield, which was the very first shield I'd ever unlocked, was probably the most useless shield of all of them. It didn't offer any extra abilities, it's measly defense buff was laughable, and any Status Enchant or Spirit Enchant gains I used on it would be wasted as it didn't seem like it would improve it by much that I wouldn't get by using another shield that had objectively better stats. 

_:Maybe it's just basic, crap starting gear,:_ I thought to myself, filled with a sense of curiosity. _:But maybe it's not. Maybe the crap Orange Shield is only the starting form and it'll level into something really great if I up it's Rarity and spend some drops on it.:_

The Orange Shield was also part of a tree with the Yellow Shield and the Red Shield, all shields unlocked from the very first, most basic monsters I'd faced coming into this world. I wondered what would happen if I upped all three of them to Uncommon, if that would unlock another branch further in their tree, or if I'd just have wasted EP getting three crap starter-shields leveled up to Uncommon.

 _:I did get a lot of EP from all of the Cooking I just did,:_ I thought to myself.

Crafting Shields, it seemed, only leveled up on use. Shields that were used for battle could be force-fed with monster drops, but Crafting-shields only leveled thier profficiency on use. To offset this, they leveled up far more quickly than battle sheilds (though there was a slight decrese int eh amount of points they gave out). An Uncommon only gave 15 EP per Mastery level as opposed to 20 from a battle-shield, but in the end it was still 800 EP per reset. I had enough points from my mornings work that I could spare 3000 EP to level up 3 shields in order to test out a theory. 

_:Why not try it?:_ I asked myself. _:If nothing else, information has its own value. Finding out that something is not possible is as valuable as finding out something that is, sometimes.:_

So I went to my first shield tree with the Red, Orange and Yellow Shields and tabbed over to Rarity, to level the three shields up to Uncommon just to see if it would unlock anything further in that tree. Sure enough, as soon as I'd finished leveling the Rarity of the last one I received a notice that said Shield Unlocked! 

**Kite Shield +1: Uncommon 1/40**   
**Ability: Glide**   
**Mastery Lvl: 1**   
**Equip Bonus: +1 Agility**

_:A kite shield!:_ I thought, heart skipping a beat with delight. : _It has the Glide Ability! What a find!:_

I knew what Glide did; if I was in a high point, I could use it to glide softly down to a low point like Mary Poppins and her umbrella. 

I was about to take my shield and go jump out the third story window of the inn we were staying at but the boy, Fohl, took precisely that moment to wake up and look around.

"Hey you," he said a bit rudely. "Sis says your defense is really high, so you're probably going to need to be higher up if you want to kill yourself."

"I'm not committing suicide," I snapped, irritated with the little brat already. "I'm just going to jump out the window with my new shield and see if the Glide on it will let me fly."

He snorted.

"Sounds like suicide to me," he said.

His timely retort however did give me pause to consider. I did not know precisely how long my newborn shield would let me glide for. There was a chance that the glide ability would last for only a half a second without any leveling on it and then I'd go crashing into the streets below. Granted, my defense stat made it so that the fall probably wouldn't immediately kill me, but it likely would not feel very good, I'd waste a potion healing myself and look like an idiot besides. Not exactly the kind of impression I was looking to make. I stepped away from the window and resolved to investigate further before I tried the Glide ability.

"Here," I said, tabbing over to my Items Inventory and then to my food list and materializing one of the little boxed lunch recipes I'd made that morning. "I've never me a kid your age that wasn't hungry."

His ever-present suspicious frown lessened as he took the food, hunched over it like it might be taken from him at any time, and started devouring it. Well, devouring half of it, he carefully left the other half untouched. Unwillingly, my opinion of his raised. He was saving it for his sister. I quickly materialized another lunch, the Healthy Choice lunch (with buffs to constitution). I turned to my new fighter

"Eat all of your lunch," I said in a commanding tone. "I've already got your sister's lunch made out special, and I hate to see food wasted."

He hesititated, watching me for a long moment, then when he saw that I had absolutely no interest in eating the lunch I'd set out for the girl (which he quickly removed from my vicinity to guard from me until his sister woke up) he attacked the rest of his. I turned back to my shields, ignoring him. 

_:Now to look at that Magic menu now that I have a little extra time and some spells!:_ I thought gleefully.

I selected the Magic button and then selected Fire, since I'd practiced it a little more than the others.

The Fire Magic screen was divided into a few different sections, and had an Affinity bar in the upper left, marking how high my affinity level had to go until it maxed out at 100. The screen below was headed with the word "Spells: Learned" with another, smaller button off the right that said "Spells: Unavailable" I ignored the Spells Unavailable section for now, and selected Spells Learned and a screen popped up that had four large buttons marked Attack, Defense, Utility and Aura with arrows that indicated they were drop downs to select each spell individually. 

_:It looks like I must have the ability to upgrade each spell individually,:_ I thought. 

I much preferred that to a system where I just received a over-all general increase without being able to adjust each spell to my preferences and battle style. Curious about how the system worked, I selected the Attack button in the Spells: Learned menu and was taken to another screen.

The screen had a lit up menu with button-lozenges for all of the Fire: Attack spells (all _one_ of them) that I'd learned so far. Selecting 'Fireball' (which was the only attack-type fire spell I'd learned so far) took me to the Spell Adjustment menu which was headed by a Proficiency gauge (3/20) in the upper left and a Mastery Points (0) in the upper right. The rest of the screen was divided into sections with five large lozenge-buttons. Four of them were paired, Range and Damage, and Cast-Time and Effect, with the fifth button as a longer bar across the bottom of the screen.

 _:It looks like the spell levels proficiency and Mastery the same way my Shield does,:_ I thought. _:And I'll bet that once I roll over it's Mastery, I'll get some kind of point or something to spend on upgrading it and adjusting its properties.:_

Investigation informed me that the Range and Damage aspects of a spell were interdependent on each other, The higher the range, the less the damage and vice versa. That was fine, since I was a frontline fighter anyway, I didn't really care about range since I was going to be in the creatures face. I was a little unclear how Elemental Affinity played in to things, but I did know that the higher the affinity the better the magic worked. Shaving off Cast-time would make it so that I could cast a spell quicker, but it would also decrease whatever it's additional Effect was in penalty. 

_:As with everything, trade-offs,:_ I thought, seeing the logic in it. _:Let's see whats in the Perk-tree.:_

It turned out that since I could adjust a spells damage, range and casting-time, effect manually, the Perk Tree offered a range of Immunity Boosts and Additional Effects, like Shrapnel and AOE and Drain on Burn and so on. They were expensive, and each perk had equally expensive upgrades (not to mention, most of them were sealed away behind the level barrier) but still... lots of cool stuff!

 _:Sweet!:_ I thought cheerfully. _:I can't wait to find an open field and start practicing magic!:_

Gyousou and Raphtalia entered the room from running thier errands. They carried two large bags with various supplies in them.

"Our new little fighter has caused quite a commotion," Gyousou reported as he and Raphtalia sorted out the supplies. "The streets were packed with guardsmen searching for the person who broke into the Church last night. The whole city is in quite and uproar. It seems someone stole a very powerful curative medicine that is said to work miracles."

"Funny that a church relies on medicine to work miracles," I said partly joking. "You'd think that, with being a Church and all, they'd be after producing their own miracles."

"Everyone seems to think you did it, Shield Hero."

"These people think I do everything," I muttered. "I'm surprised they didn't just walk in here and arrest me without proof. Then again, since it's the Church, I suppose they'd have to put on a show of being fair. Unlike their petty king, they can't afford to look like tyrants."

There came a rude and decisive pounding on my hotel door. Without waiting for me to answer it, a city guardsman kicked it in.

"You're under arrest!" the guard shouted at me.

"Where's your warrant!" I snapped.

Mein appeared at the guards shoulder, smirking triumphantly and holding aloft a scroll. I briefly wondered if I could test out my new fireball spell on her, but decided that there were too many witnesses.

"It's right here," she said smugly. "We're here to arrest the criminal Shield Here for unlawful entry of Church Grounds and theft of one the holy artifacts held within."

You ninny!" I snapped at her as I snatched the scroll and scanned it. "This is only a search and seizure warrant to collect evidence."

I spread my arms out to encompass the room. 

"You can go ahead and search, bitch, I have nothing to hide, but you need to have evidence or probable cause to make an arrest."

She scowled at me and gestured the guards to start making a mess. They executed their orders with prejudice, scattering cushions and blankets, knocking over furniture and causing a rukus. One of the guards picked up the bundle of rags that disguised the girl sleeping on the bed. The girl out a sharp cry of pain and surprise causing Fohl to dart protectively toward his sister and attack her attacker.

'No!" I shouted too late to prevent Fohl from taking a swipe at the guardsman manhandling his baby sister. 

The guard had the young boy snatched up and restrained even as the girl cried out in fear and alarm. Raphtalia had her hand on her sword ready to draw and go for a throat. Gyousou and I stepped forward to keep our younger team mates in line, and to keep hopefully things from escalating to all out violence.

"Tell your ruffian of a guardsman to unhand that child!" I snapped. "Or I'll Unhand _him_ , by which I mean I'll take his hands off."

"How dare you threaten the law?" Mein demanded.

"How dare you threaten a child?" I replied.

Suddenly, Mein got that overly pleased look she often got on her face when she thought she'd won. 

"All we need to arrest is need probable cause," she said, smirking even wider as she examined the bundle of rags that held a shivering, sickly child. "And here we have it. Such a poor, sickly little beast."

"I narrowed my eyes at her, Fohl struggled and I shot him a silencing look. 

"It would take a miracle to heal this little cripple. I'll bet the Shield Hero broke into the church and stole it to help out her little demi-human insurgents. She's working with the demi-human dissidents in the city, leading their nobles on and abetting their crimes."

 _:Nobles?:_ I wondered in puzzlement.

Fohl's eyes blazed with fury and he executed a practiced throw that had the guard trying to restrain him down on the ground. Three other guard promptly leaped on the boy and tackled him, throwing restraints around him.

"Let Atla go!" he snarled, struggling against his bindings.

It was clear by looking at him, that if he got loose, he wouldn't hold back and they wouldn't hesitate to kill him. If I didn't do something quick there were going to be bodies on the floor. I knew how this crappy government treated hanjuu, if they took him for interrogation he'd be whipped.

: _He's just a kid!:_ I thought hurriedly. _:But they won't care, they'll flog him to death anyway, just because they can. He one of mine, now, and i can't let that happen!:_

He was so young, and so underfed, I didn't know if he'd be able to live through the ungodly amount of lashes they'd prescribe at punishment. I _had_ to go along with them, just so they'd keep their hands off the boy and his poor sister. I was the party leader, it was my job.

 _:Besides, I have Hero Immunity.:_ I reminded myself in consolation. _:They can't really detain me because they need me to fight their damn cataclysm. Worse they can do is give me lashes, and my Endurance stat is off the chain, I'll barely feel it.:_

It was humiliating, but he was just a kid who stole medicine to help his dying sister. I couldn't turn my back on that.

"Fine!" I snapped. "I'll go with you to your corrupt king and his farce of a government. But since you only have a warrant for probable cause for one, you and your men will let my party alone."

"Fine," Mein said, eyes gleaming in triumph. 

"You sure about this?" Gyousou muttered, as one of the guards. 

"It's better than letting them torture the boy," I muttered back. "I'll be fine. That tyrant king can't do much to me because he needs me. I'll have to endure his grand-standing, I'll get a few lashes and some rotten fruit. We'll be back on the field by sundown. I'll meet you at the gate."


	28. An Unexpected Assist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Decides if She's going to Hang for a Lamb Anyway, She should Get Her Licks In While She Can, and is Saved by an Unexpected Benefactor

I allowed the guards to chain me up with an iron collar and manacles around my wrists and ankles and lead me from the room. They put me in a cage-cart and hauled me back to the palace where, predictably, the whole court was assembled in the throne room. I was forced (none too gently) to my knees on the red carpet before the throne. Since my guilt was a foregone conclusion anyway, I took the opportunity to clear my throat and start my day out right... By lobbing a loogie right at the Royal Snoot. 

_:Direct hit!:_ I thought in mean satisfaction as it landed directly on his face.

Mein stood on one side of the throne looking like the cat with the cream, and on the other side of the throne stood someone I didn't recognize. He looked like a highly-placed clergyman to judge by his fancy robe and silly hat, perhaps even a cardinal-equivalent or that world's equivalent of a pope. 

_:Hm. Interesting,:_ I noted, despite all of my other troubles.

I'd noticed that the Church of the Three Saint Heroes seemed to have a lot of sway over the opinions of everyone in town, and that only made sense in a world that seemed to be based on medieval Europe, but I wasn't sure how much influence they had among the nobility.

_:I wonder how great an influence the church has over royal and mundane affairs here.:_

My guess would be a lot, seeing as the church had been able to call upon the city guard and not just rely on their church-knights, to hunt down whoever had taken their holy-juice. In addition, it was Mein herself, a high-ranked member of the Royal Family, who had come in person to make the arrest. I wasn't sure what all of this meant, exactly, but I knew it did not bode well for me.

The king, meanwhile, had been nattering on, condemning me as a criminal while I'd been distracted by figuring out this development involving the church. I finally turned my attention to him only to hear the usual

"...Devil of the Shield violating our most holy and sacred of sanctuaries! it is not to be withstood and we will use the harshest punishment available enshrined in our sacred laws--"

I laughed loudly

"Oh _now_ you wanna follow the law, you old dick?" I snapped. "I see you still only ever do anything when it suits you! You who claims fairness but then punishes without evidence? You answer a serious allegation with a mockery of a trial in which I am not allowed to present any evidence in my defense, then you suddenly turn around and go _on_ about your supposed "sacred laws." If this were a _real_ court instead of this _travesty_ , you wouldn't have a leg to stand on, and you _know_ it. We all know that this isn't justice you asshole! So you can take your sacred laws, cram them up your ass! Let's get on with this circus, daylight's wasting."

The court looked at me for a long moment, utterly speechless with shock that I'd dared address their ruler with such crude speech and insolent tone. I had to admit, I was really enjoying watching his face turn purple. 

_:Maybe he'll swell up with indignation and explode,:_ I thought.

I had known the minute that the had guards burst into my room with Mein in tow that I wasn't going to get anything _remotely_ resembling justice or the chance to defend myself, so as far as I was concerned, they were just dragging things out for show for their own satisfaction. I was sick of being their whipping boy, I had a calamity to train for.

The king spluttered for a moment then completely lost his cool.

"The criminal Shield shall be lashed in the square!" he shouted.

He was so overcome with rage that his voice cracked shrilly.

"Fifty! No! A hundred! No! _A thousand!"_ He screeched as his face flushed purple. "A thousand lashes! Flay his flesh from off his bones! No mercy!"

He was screaming like a little bitch at the end, and even I began to worry that I might have pushed things too far. I had an Endurance stat like no-one else, but a _thousand_ lashes? No-one could live through that! Evidently, the Court Official in charge of taking down sentencing, knew that as well, for he hesitantly said

"Sire, you are not legally-"

"You'll join him, fool!" the King snapped. "I said a thousand! Heal him if you must! Scourge the skin from his body or leave his bones to rot!"

The court, usually so ready to nod happily along with their king, made uneasy noises at this sudden bout of insanity. I was still a Hero, after all, and they still technically needed me to fight thier calamity for them. Unfortunately for me, it was equally evident that there was no-one in the court who was willing to risk their king's wrath by speaking up to him, so it looked like we were about to see if I could withstand a thousand lashes. I mentally began going through my arsenal of different Shields and special abilities to try to figure out what might give me a fighting chance of survival when the guards began to advance on me uneasily.

The Throne room was covered in an oppressive silence in which people were dismayed at the insane demands of thier ruler, but were equally to afraid to speak out against him. The heavy, uncomfortable silence was broken by the sound of the heavy wooden doors to the throne room crashing open resounding through the air. The whole court, including me, all turned to look at the source of the disturbance.

Framed in the doorway of the throne-room stood Ren Amaki, his Legendary Sword out, having clearly used one of his Sword Skills to blast open the door. There was a pile of unconscious guards behind him. He was flanked by, Gyousou Saku and my new little fighter Fohl Faeon.

"If I may interrupt," Amaki said, walking confidently down the aisle to stand beside me.

"Sword Hero," the king said with a stiff, reluctant note of respect in his voice. "This Court is in the middle of sentencing this miscreant, devil Shield Hero to his due and just punishment. After this we would be more than delighted to hear whatever the Sainted Hero of the Sword would wish to bring forward."

"Well _somebody_ gets special treatment," I muttered enviously.

"You do too," he muttered back. "Just all the wrong kind."

He raised his voice and addressed the king.

"It concerns the sentence of the Shield Hero," he said. "It is unjust and unlawful."

I hissed at Amaki, concerned that if he tried to get me off the hook, they'd just switch me out with my new hanjuu-boy and that would _definitely_ kill him. Amaki looked over at me with a reassuring look, his bright blue eyes piercing and intelligent on his handsome face. I was reluctant to trust him, seeing as everything else had went wrong for me so far. I looked over at Gyousou for reassurance and he nodded in confirmation. It was okay to trust him, they had this handled. I held my silence and let Amaki proceed with his plan.

_:After all, it's not like he could make things much worse for me.:_

I'd mouthed off to the king so thoroughly he'd ordered me whipped to death.

"The Shield Hero could not possibly have stolen that vial of medicine you claim is missing from the church," Ren Amaki said confidently. 

"We have probable cause," Mein protested.

"But no actual proof," Amaki replied coolly. "And I, standing witness on my honor as the Hero of the Sword, say that the Shield Hero is innocent by right of alibi. He was with _me_ the whole night, last night."

"What?!" The king said. "Impossible!"

"Quite possible," Amaki said. "The Shield Hero gave myself and the Bow Hero valuable information the night previous about our Legendary Weapons. At the time I did not believe him, but I soon came to wonder if it was true, so I back-tracked to his room and his sword, Gyousou Saku, informed me that Sugimoto was looking for a new member to add to his party, another slave."

"We tracked down a... merchant who had the sort of stock he was looking for, and spent the night haggling with the merchant over his wares. This one here,"Amaki indicated Fohl. "Had the attributes that Sugimoto was looking for, but was only being sold as a matched set with his invalid-sister."

Fohl stepped forward and bared his chest to the room. My personal slave-seal, a stylized shield sigil, shone out brightly in glowing magic ink upon his flesh.

"As you see," Amaki said. "The slave mark sealed to Sugimoto's Shield bears out the veracity of my testimony. As I _am_ the Sainted Hero of the Sword, my word, backed by evidence, should be more than enough to acquite Sugimoto of these accusations."

"B-b-b-but, but--" the king spluttered.

I myself was probably looking at Ren like he'd grown a second head. It just felt so unexpected to have someone (and of those three boys I'd dismissed as gamer-boy idiots with no common sense outside of thier video game knowledge, no less!) come to my aid. I hadn't been looking forward to the punishment, honestly. With my advantages to my Endurance stat, I figured I'd make it through the lashing, where the kid would _definitely_ die being whipped to death, but it wouldn't have been _easy_ for me either. I was happy to be given a sudden and unexpected reprieve!

"What about the Holy Water of Yggdrasil?" Mein demanded angrily. "Someone stole it! The criminal Shield Hero and his party of slaves and other disreputable are the only ones who could have done it. That vault is locked and sealed with the holiest of magics!"

"That sounds like it's your problem to figure out," Amaki said with an uncaring shrug. "I've given my testimony and proven my words, it's up to you to find the real thief. Release him."

Though he was in no authority to command any of the city guards, they did as he told them to when the king reluctantly waved his hands and I was allowed to stand and leave my sentencing. When we reached the streets I looked over at Ren Amaki, grabbed his hand, and said

"Thank-you! You didn't have to perjurer yourself to help me, but I'm glad you did. Thanks... thanks for sticking your neck out for me, Amaki."

"I'll admit, when I saw them hauling you away in that prison-cart, I thought you'd done it too. It was your companions who came and found me and told me what had really happened," he said honestly. "They convinced me to help you out, so Gyousou, Fohl and I got our story straight and we all rushed over here. It was unexpected to learn that you'd stuck your own neck out for a child."

I looked at him, a little offended and said

"Of course I would. I might be asking Fohl to fight for me, but he's one of my own now, and I take care of my own."

"It's just that... given your _reputation_ ," he said uncomfortably.

My good mood and gratitude soured a little bit on hearing that he still thought I was a rapist and a criminal, but I was still more grateful to him than offended so I said

"Still, you didn't have to help me out, Amaki," I said. "And I'm grateful you did. I _really_ wasn't looking forward to a public lashing. That king blew his lid and sentenced me to a thousand!"

"A thousand?" Ren said, shocked. "Is that possible?"

"I, er, _may_ have mouthed off a bit," I admitted.

Gyousou looked heavenward as if calling on patience.

"If I'm going to hang either way," I said with a fierce smile. "I might as well get my licks in while I can!"

"That sounds like you," Gyousou sighed. "Is there _ever_ a day when that mouth of yours isn't landing you in bigger trouble?"

"Well thanks to Amaki here, today is not that day," I said. 

I looked over at my savior, noting for the first time that he was actually quite good looking. Normally I didn't really go for the pretty-boy type, as I wasn't sure I wanted a boyfriend that was prettier than I was. Ren Amaki, however, with his shoulder-length slightly mussy hair, and his cool narrow eyes, was somehow unexpectedly attractive to me. I found myself strangely reluctant to part ways with him so soon, so I thought quickly of a way to spend at least a little more time with him.

"Hey, I don't have much of value to offer you as a reward since I don't believe that virtue should be it's own reward and I don't like owing favors," I said. "Did you want to know what I found hidden down there?"

"I am curious," he admitted.

I inwardly nodded to myself adding another point of data on my spreadsheet about Amaki. He might not be the type to argue over loot like a child. He might do what's right out of his own sense of justice, but that didn't mean that he _didn't_ want to be rewarded for it.

"Guys, pack up and head toward the gate," I instructed my team. "I'll meet you at the slave-dealers tent outside the city and we can head out. Amaki?"

We were alone together a few minutes later and I gestured Ren to follow me to a place I knew where we could talk and no-one would look twice at us. The Ryusu Bazaar was more along the lines of a low-town marketplace than the neat rows of shops vending upscale gear that was most often frequented by upstanding heroes. It was a ramshackle cram of everything under the sun all smashed together in no discernible rhyme or reason. A good deal of it was probably stolen and then resold, but they weren't to careful about asking questions there in the Rhyusu Bazaar. I had discovered that you could purchase rumors, information, and even some things that were not, shall we say, readily available from those upscale, legitimate establishments. I also knew one of the tavern owners here well enough to know he wouldn't spit in my food, or repeat what he'd overheard me say to someone else.

"I'll buy you lunch and tell you all about my little adventure in certain unnamed places," I said carefully. 

When the waiter brought the food to us, we ate quietly. I was inwardly pleased to note that Amaki wasn't one of those that needed chatter for chatters sake. Our noodle bowls were flavorful and we watched the crowd pass by the little stand from our tall stools for a bit. The Rhyusu Bazaar was never the same twice, there were allways merchants and peddlars moving in and out of it, selling thier wares for a few days then picking up and moving on. I liked it because there was aleways the thrill of discovery, and the hope for a good bargain. At the end of the meal Amaki looked up and said

"So you were there, but you didn't take it. What _did_ you find?"

I also noted with approval that Amaki was smart enough to keep things vague, so I returned the favor.

"In this er, _dungeon_ ," I said with a heavy emphasis on dungeon to let him know it was code for the vault under the church. "I found whole shelves filled with books that they didn't want anyone knowing about. Also, there were all of the statues of the shield that they took down from the main annex with all of the other statues that had been moved there where no-one knew about them."

His expression grew puzzled and he looked a question at me. I lowered my voice and said

"Visit the church and look at the statues in those niches lining the entry. There's the Three Heroes of the Spear, the Sword and the Bow, but every fourth niche is empty and the stained glass window's been replaced. Evidence points that the Shield's been _deliberately_ erased."

I continued on in a more normal tone, ostensibly telling him about this mysterious dungeon I'd dove into.

"So I look around the dungeon a bit and there's these four fancy altars with books on them one in each corner of the room. There's also two other altars in the center of the room, boxed in by extra bookshelves, and they have a huge tome and some kind of other artifact, I'm not sure what it does."

The significant look and the pantomime I made of drinking something communicated to Amaki that this other artifact was the phial.

"The altar has this other book on it, and it's one I _recognize_. It's the "Record of the Four Cardinal Weapons" which it the same book I was reading before I got Fushigi Yuugi'ed into this world."

Ren looked puzzled at my reference and I hurried on to describe the four other books one in each of the four directions. I then told him that I used one of my weird Shields the Book Shield, which allowed me to copy and store the contents of a book like making a digital scan of it. I switched to Book Shield and then used the menu to pull up the lore I'd discovered and the Book Shield changed over to that book.

"A little like Weapon Copy, only for lore!" he said, amused.

I ignored the little pang of envy I felt for his reference to Weapon Copy which he still had and I still did _not_. Maybe it was because it felt like cheating.

"Is there any way you can give me a copy of those books you found?" he asked next. "I have not unlocked a Sword that let's me copy books."

"I can, but I don't know how much good it'll do you," I replied. "You can't read the writing of this world."

"I can learn, same as you," he said, his voice a little stiff with affronted pride.

"Alright, sure thing, if oyu want it. I just need a blank book, like a journal, and I can transfer the contents over," I said. "It takes a little while, and I have to warn you, I didn't get the whole contents of all of the books for some reason, even though my Shield said that the copy was complete. There's sections that are missing from them. I'm not sure why since it hasn't happened with any other book I've copied."

Amaki and I paid for our meal and walked out into the market to find the blank journals. The sun was high in the sky and daylight was wasting so we quickly found a small bookseller, bought our blank journals from her, and found a small out of the way corner to wait out the transfer.

"Oh, that reminds me Amaki," I said, partly to make conversation and partly because I was curious. "What was it you were planning on doing once you left the city?"

"I have a lead on a boss-level monster that needs slaying in the eastern mountains," he said. "I could use to better materials to upgrade my weapons and gear with. You?"

"We have a new team-mate," I said. "I'm going to head back to Lute Village to help them out until the last of the rift-spawned monsters clear up and they can make repairs. Mostly, I'm looking for a safe place with some small-fry to level my new guy up. I'm also going to look around for a Healer. Can't tank well without one, honestly. Until then we'll get Fohl in fighting shape for the next wave."

"He's a bit _young_ ," Ren said in a disapproving tone. "And a bit... _slavey_."

"He'll get older as he levels up," I replied. "Raphtalia was only nine years old a few weeks ago and when her levels increased so did her age."

"Unusual," Ren said mildly. "I hadn't heard of that being the case."

"Your party's all human too," I pointed out. "The humans in this kingdom don't seem to treat hanjuu very well. Likely they either didn't know or didn't care to learn."

"Harsh, but not unfair," he acknowledged.

The shield dinged at me, letting me know it had finished its last copy. I handed Ren his copies of the Record of the Four Cardinal Weapons, The Book of Seiryuu, The Book of Suzaku, The Book of Byakko and The Book of Genbu.

"Thanks again for helping me out earlier, Amaki," I said sincerely. "I wasn't expecting it, and I'll remember it."

"Thanks for the free Lore," he said, in reply as he flipped through his new books. "And good luck on your leveling."

"Same to you," I said, heading towards the city Gate.

_:Maybe I was wrong to write Amaki off as some dumb gamer-boy with no common sense beyond his gaming mentality,:_ I thought, resisting the urge to glance back at him. _:Certainly he's the first and only one among our number who's given me a fair shake.:_

Granted, he was a little on the condescending side, but that was typical about know-it-all's his age. All in all, I thought I might grow to like him given half a chance. It was rare of me to find that I wanted to think well of him.

_:Well either way, time's wasting, I have to meet my companions out at the gate!:_


	29. The Champion of Lute Village

Gyousou and the rest of the party were waiting for me at the East Gate in the shadow of the slave tent which had apparently been forced to move itself outside of the city to avoid the scrutiny of the law. A curious glance as we passed by revealed to me that the slave dealer hid his real trade by masquerading as an entertainer. He had a small tent filled with fake oddities like "mermaids scales" and "unicorns horns" and another tent filled up with carnival games that were rigged to be nearly impossible to beat. The scumbag himself stood outside the main tent behind a booth with a lot of what looked like plastic eggs in a case in front of him. The slave dealer held up a handful of colored tickets and waved them invitingly from where he stood behind his booth.

"Step right up, yes!" the bespectacled and top-hat-wearing slave dealer invited us.

The only stepping up I was going to do would be to step on his _head_! He'd kidnapped me and tried to _sell_ me!

"Caution," Gyousou said quietly, holding my arm to restrain me from getting my daily murder quota in.

He did not look happy either but it seemed that he saw something I had missed. 

"Try your luck, Hero?" the slave dealer asked, just as though he hadn't ordered his goons to drug me, chain me up and lock me in a cage.

The slave-dealer showed me his box of eggs and I felt curiosity starting to get the better of me. They were larger than chicken eggs by a lot, more like the size of ostrich eggs, or those dinosaur eggs from the movie about a dinosaur theme park that had went terribly wrong. They came in different colors too.

"What's this?" I asked, curiousl in spite of my deep seated dislike of the man.

"A golden opportunity, yes!" he assured me. "Twenty silvers to buy an egg, yes, with a chance that your egg could hatch into a creature worth fifty golds."

I snorted. What a scam.

"I'll bet those critters in there aren't worth five coppers," I scoffed. "I wasn't born yesterday, I could get a crappy critter that's worth half what I paid for it and you'd still have twenty silvers. Not buyin' it!"

"Satisfaction _guaranteed_ , yes!" the slave dealer said desperately. "Equal or greater value or your money back!"

I looked at Gyousou with puzzlement. It sounded like a scam, but who offered repayment in a scam? Gyousou looked back at me and shrugged, leaving the decision up to me.

"Fine, I'll bite," I said. "But I want your guarantee in writing. Your word ain't worth the paper it's printed on."

"Such a fine young man," the Dealer assured me. "You won't be dissatisfied."

"I'm regretting it already," I muttered, handing over twenty whole silver pieces. 

I walked up to the carton of monster eggs and looked them all over. They were many of them faintly different colors, but that could mean anything. I switched to my Green Egg Shield, which had the analyze skill on it. Normally, it was used for analyzing food ingredients, but since it came from a Green Eggy monster, I figured it might give me a hint of some sort. Sure enough, when I activated the analyze skill, I learned what most of the eggs were from monsters I had fought, so it really narrowed down the playing field.

"That's cheating, yes!" the Slave Dealer exclaimed. 

"It's using all resources at my disposal," I argued. "You shall see in my receipt, which is a contract between buyer and seller, that I bought 'an egg of my choosing worth an equivalent value of fifty silver pieces to the monster inside.' It is my business how I wish to choose that egg, I only bought the opportunity to choose. You have no further say in the matter."

He opened his mouth to argue, but then paused and looked at me with an oddly, very creepy, pleased look on his face. 

"The Hero of the Shield is not one to be swept along in someone else's pace, yes!" he said, sounding weirdly pleased by it. 

"You're lucky we're in a public place," I replied. "Otherwise there are some matters that I and my Sword, Gyousou, here would settle with you."

I turned back to the eggs, having warned the Slave Dealer that he was on my list of names that he doesn't want to be on. I picked out a fine looking yellow-gold colored egg that I could not identify, meaning that it either wasn't a monster I had fought, or wasn't a monster at all. Either was fine with me as I had fought most of the lower level monsters in the area. The Dealer put my egg in a fancy a portable incubator, and we moved along to the chocobo, er, _filorial_ dealer to purchase a ride back to Lute Village. 

It was a short, but joyful trip. I saw Fohl smile for the first time ever, once he stopped fussing over his sister, that was. Raphtalia was being a delightful older sister to the two of them, leaving me to ride ahead alongside Gyousou and discuss strategy. He had apparently decided that I was to receive lessons in leadership, since it seemed from the last engagement during the Calamity, that my skills were angled more in that direction.... which I thought sucked because I was more of a loner than a leader. Still, I paid attention because I'd learned to oppearte under the principle that it was better to learn something and not need it than it was to need to know something and be ignorant. I was a Legendary Hero, and the leader of my party, chances were better than fair that I would be expected to lead at some point. It had already happened once, so perhaps Gyousou was taking care of the future. After an hour of lessons from him, I also came to the conclusion that Gyousou really knew what he was about when it came to this leadership thing.

We arrived at an impoverished and half-destroyed, but very very grateful, Lute Village. The sheriff, whose opinion was no longer consulted by the Village Elders, protested when I and my party were offered free accommodations at the inn but we all ignored him.

"Hero of the Shield!" the oldest of the village elders said. "We are all grateful to you beyond what we can express for your aid. Truly! Truly, you have saved our village. We would like to gift you with a token to display our humble thanks, and the sense of indebtedness we of Lute Village feel toward you for the bravery and fortitude you displayed during the Calamity Wave."

I had only showed up for two reasons, to see how the village was getting on, and to start leveling up my new party memebr from a relatively familiar and safe home base, but if they were so detirmined to thank me, it would be rude to spurn them.I looked over at Gyousou to ask him silently how I should respond. He stepped forward and gave a short, military bow

"The Shield Hero would be honored to accept your gracious hospitality, though of course, no thanks are owed."

That night, Gyousou and I left the kids with Raphtalia and went to a meeting of the Village Elders, wherein they intended to honor the Shield Hero for his defense of the village.

"It's nice to be appreciated and all," I said as I looked at the ramshackle accommodations around me. 

The Council Meeting was being held in the largest free-standing structure to have survived the Calamity intact... a barn. 

"But are you sure they have the time and resources to waste on this?" I wondered. "Shouldn't they put everything they have towards rebuilding their city?"

"Let them express their appreciation," Gyousou counseled me gravely. "Otherwise, the village will feel the oppression of a great debt owed to you that is left unpaid. All here know that without our intervention, this village would have been wiped out, and every man, woman and child in it slain by the swarm. It is a hideous thing to know. It is a fate that you saved them from."

"Their own guard pitched in," I pointed out stubbornly. 

"But would have failed without our intercession. Let them be grateful and alleviate their debt. And... is that your new egg?"

I looked down and blushed a little bit. I had taken to carrying the incubator around with me. I wanted to be there when the critter hatched. My parents had never let me have a baby _anything_ before not even a hamster, even though we had a house of our own and not an apartment, and so we _could_ have had an animal if we'd wanted. They always said that I'd never take care of it and that it was never the right time. I'd begged and begged for a kitten, or a puppy or even a bird or a hamster, but they'd always said no. 

"Er..." I said, blushing further. "I didn't want to leave it alone. Just in case something happened."

He got that sort of soft and amused look he sometimes got on his face, then reached out and ruffled my hair in a brotherly manner. I tried to frown at him but settled my egg on my lap instead as we sat down. The meeting was long and boring, mostly discussing in what order the repairs would be undertaken, who would cull supplies and from where. The matter of tax was debated by the elders for a long while, since it seemed that the local lord had perished without heirs some time ago. The Sheriff had been angling to be appointed to the position of Lord for some time, but the crown had apparently been sitting on it, so the affairs of the village were handled by the Elder Council in the interim. Finally I was called to stand before the Elder Council.

"Remember to act pleased and honored," Gyousou reminded me quietly as I rose to take center stage.

"In recognition for your valor and service to our humble Village," the oldest and therefore Elder-y-est, Elder in the village said as his fellow elders pulled out a large, beat-up-looking metal shield covered in faded, cracked leather bearing the symbol of the village on it.

"This Council wishes to recognize the Shield Hero as the Champion of Lute!"

_:Oh, great. Another Shield. This one looks old and crappy,:_ I thought, trying my best to school my face into an expression of polite gratitude. 

"Take this, our oldest relic--"

_:It certainly **looks** the part.:_

"As proof of thy ascension," the older croaked. "May it serve you well upon your journey."

"My dear friends," I said, clearly, thinking hard on the spot. "As much as it gladdens my heart that you would wish to reward me with such a... a _treasure_ of your village. My humble self could not possibly take such a cherished and valued artifact from it's place of honor here in Lute. Instead..."

I prayed quickly to my Shield and then activated my Status Menu, hitting the Settings tab, and sure enough, right next to the tab for my MP3 player was a tab that said Weapon Copy on it. I pushed the Weapon Copy function and touched my shield to the old crap-shield they were trying to foist off on me. I received a notification just like I had used a monster drop or miscellaneous object to unlock a new shield. 

_:Oooh! My second-only Uncommon!:_ I celebrated.

Granted, I could level a shield from Common to Uncommon now with EP, but that didn't mean I didn't appreciate having to not do the work!

**Champion of Lute Sheild +1: Uncommon 1/40**   
**Ability: Encore**   
**Mastery Lvl: 1**   
**Equip Bonus: +.1 Aura Range Extension**

A quick selection of the Ability showed me that I could select one of my Leader Badges that I'd already used and use it's ability again! Niiiiice! It also extended the range of my battle auras. I'd definitely be leveling that one up.

I smiled widely at them, changing my mind utterly about their crappy shield. 

"I shall carry this Shield you have blessed me with into battle with pride and pleasure," I said sincerely, no longer having to lie to think of something nice to say. "As much as you have honored me, so too has it been my honor to help you and your people."

I was surprised not only to hear applause to my little speech but some of the old geezers looked like they were getting teary-eyed. I bowed and returned to my seat before they could start getting sentimental and weepy on me. We were toasted and feted and Gyousou might have had to support my unsteady, half-drunk ass back to the room and help tuck me into bed with Raphtalia and Atla. I don't know if I snored or not. 

I got up early the next morning so that I could go throw up quietly. I headed outside to the well-pump to wash my mouth out and found that Gyousou was already out in the yard practicing with his sword. I'm not gonna lie, he was pretty built for an older guy! I didn't know how much older than me he was, possibly middle aged or coming up on it. Probably twice my age then, or near to it. He had this sort of ageless, young-looking face but at the same time he had the aura of a bit of a grizzled veteran, which made me trust him and actually listen to his counsel. 

"A bit of a head this morning, have we?" he asked dryly on sighting me squinting against the morning sunlight.

"Hey, I'm barely sixteen," I grumbled. "I'm not technically even _supposed_ to be drinking yet, but I'm allowed to on this world. I don't really know my limits."

He sighed a bit and shrugged.

"Be more careful," he grunted, turning back to his sword exercises. 

I looked on a bit wistfully, thinking of my own dual-weilding twin-swords that I had learned how to use during my servitude under the king of Kou. I had a Legenday Shield, and it was truly a great shield, but the sad truth was that I couldn't attack with it...

_:Until I get started with the **magic** ,:_ I thought in anticipation.

With everything else going on, I'd all but forgotten all the trouble I'd went through to discover how to use magic in this world. Now that I was thinking about it, there was no way I wasn't going to git gud at it myself!

"Gyousou," I said, pointing in the direction I remembered there being a knot of Red Balloons that spawned with such regularity that you could time your watch by them. "I'm going to go over to that patch of Red Balloons in that field over there and test out my magic."

"Stay where I can see you in case you need help," he cautioned me. "This place is notorious for spawning a single, very high level monster once a sufficient number of lower level monsters have been killed."

That was interesting to know. I walked over to the field, making certain to keep Gyousou in eye-shot of me and switched to the Red Shield, which I had invested in a Status Enchant of +.40% Mana Regen. It had cost me some some materials, that was for certain, but if I was going to train myself in casting magic spells, mana regen was the best way to do it efficiently. I double-checked the Magic Menu in my shield once, then mentally reviewed my previous lessons.

I laid the spell-work diagram out in my mind and saw it taking effect in my imagination. 

"Oh Thou Divine Fates who Channel the Power of Fire," I chanted, pulling magic into me like breathing. "I have read and understood the Law." 

A targeting circle with a crosshairs on it appeared within my vision like a heads up display in a game and I centered it on the Red Bouncy nearest to me and the targeting circle turned red as the target was illuminated in its center.

"Hear me now and Answereth to my Command. Lend your power to my Source." 

I felt a tightening tickle in my gut, like something was charging up inside of me. I pulled in harder on that feeling, imagining it being like a person might pull on a bowstring. A pinpoint of light manifested in front of me centered on the targeting-sight. The pinpoint expanded outward and spiraled into a candleflame and then intensified. I could feel the heat of it on my skin and an answering sort of echo from within me, pounding to the rhythm of my heart and flowing through me like blood in my body. The strange sensation grew as the fireball expanded outward, growing until it was about the size of a tennis ball and it began to wobble. I knew from my instruction that this meant that the energy had channeled to the limits of the spell was designed to hold, if I tried to hold it in place the continuous flow of energy would make the spell break apart and potentially blow up in my face. It was time to cast.

"Fireball!" I shouted.

I released the tightened feeling and the fireball shot away from me like an arrow, blazing a swift path to the Red Balloon where it engulfed the creature in flame for a long moment. I saw the youma disintegrate before my eyes and an XP window popped up, showing that I had vanquished it. I pulled up my magic screen to see that I had gained a single point in Proficiency for that spell. I did it! I could do it! No longer was I chained to defensive abilities only, I had an offensive ability now! I could finally kill things.

"Alright!" I celebrated. "Spellcasting is awesome!"

I began casting my next spell, determined to get practice in and grow my proficiency as well as practice to develop my instinct for magic. It wasn't truly _difficult_ , exactly, but I could sort of feel that it was something that took practice to truly say I understood it. The tight, tingly feeling of my tapping into and channeling magic through my body didn't catch me as much off guard my second time around though it was going to take some getting used to. I had cast my fireball spell three times before I started feeling the effects of it and needed to take a short break to let my mana recharge. Gyousou was leaned up against a fence nearby, watching me train, I smiled brightly over at him and waved, unable to contain my delight at becoming a spellcaster.

"I can attack now!" I said proudly in celebration.

"You've picked it up with surprising alacrity," he congratulated me. "Most who would learn to cast magic in this world seem to need a great deal more study before they reach even this level."

"My shield aids me in targeting and knowing my range, and damage and how much power I have to channel. The spells come preloaded. I can modify them, but I suspect that a trained magician would surpass me in time as far as flexibility goes," I said. "But I can artificially increase my spells by altering it int eh Magic Menu of my Shield."

Gyousou looked a bit wry about it, as though he knew full well that my Shield granted me cheaty abilities that an ordinary person would not have. 

_:Heh, sometimes, it's good to be the Shield Hero,:_ I thought a bit smugly of my dear Legendary Weapon. 

"As soon as your mana regenerates," Gyousou said. "You should join me on a patrol around the perimeter of the village. You are the Champion after all, it is a duty you should see to when you have the time."

"I suppose I can level just as easily on the go as in one place, and there's less chance I'll spawn a mini-boss that way. I'm game," I agreed.

We set off on a careful route all around the perimeter of the village, clearing out small mobs of low-level enemies that had spawned in patches of field a little too close to human settlement for comfort. The villagers all seemed very pleased to see us clearing away the enemies so that they could get on with the task of reconstruction without needing to worry about the small mobs encroaching on their vulnerable position. I was as pleased to let them think what they wanted, for my magic-leveling was coming along just fine. 

It was around lunchtime when we completed a double-circuit of the village to find that every youma in the area had been hunted to extinction, at least for the day. 

"I suppose we're done here," I said with a shrug, unless you want to venture out further afield?"

"The area is hunted out, and I wished to venture out with our younger party-members when we ranged farther from the village to let them grow accustomed to how our party fights," Gyousou said. "I suppose now is a fine time for lunch, and we should head back."


	30. White Mage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which our Heroine Levels her Magic with Community Service

On our way back to the inn, we passed what clearly looked like a field hospital set up in the open courtyard of what had once been a caravanserai depot. There were a number of people laid out on makeshift cots being tended by a few people who were obvious healing mages though the number of people injured in the Calamity even with my help was somewhat shocking to see. If this was what things were like even _with_ me taking on the brunt of the swarm then what would things have been like if I had chosen to do nothing to help?

_:Everyone here would have died,:_ I thought, feeling sober about it for the first time. _:No wonder they were all grateful to me.:_

"I'm going to see what I can do here," I said to Gyousou, my tone a little bit subdued. "After all, I need to level up my Healing Magic..."

Gyousou looked at me as though he wasn't a bit fooled, but smiled and said

"You do that."

I changed my shield to the White Wind Shield, which offered me a stat boost in my healing spells. I double checked my single basic Healing Spell in my utility menu, reviewed the parameters of it, then walked over to the person who looked to be in charge, and older man with the look of a kindly village priest about him, and asked if I would be allowed to help the village with my newly acquired healing magic. 

"Sure, I don't mind if you want to help," he said cautiously. "You looked like you were doing fine with your fireball over there, better than most beginners anyway. You can start on that lot over there. Their injuries are fairly minor, they should be fine for a beginner."

I nodded and bowed respectfully then walked over to the tent that he had indicated. There were people lying on cots in neat rows. Their injuries were obvious, cuts, gashes, broken limbs. That said, it did not lessen the awful smell of blood everywhere and the moans of pain from the injured. There was a woman in the robes of the clergy moving among the injured to take their measure, and I felt immediately wary of her given my past experiences with the clergy of the country. I saw her bend over an injured man who was moaning in pain, and deftly cast a healing spell. I watched her with interest, not ever having seen it performed from the outside and noticed that she used hand gestures as well as a chant to aid her in her focus. 

_:Doesn't look all that much different from fireball...:_

I closed my eyes attuning myself with the energy of Light and laying out the healing spell I wanted to perform clearly in my mind, building it layer by layer.

"Oh Thou Divine Fates who Channel the Power of Light," I said carefully.

To my relief the targeting cross-hairs snapped into place and my target was highlighted as I concentrated on it. 

"I have Read and Understood the Law." 

I felt the energy of light begin to gather around me and within me. It felt a little bit like wind pressure all over me, and a little bit lie an upwelling of peaceful energy within me. My heart beat a little bit faster, like excitement or happiness. It was a bit difficult to categorize.

"Hear me now and Answereth to my Command. Let me be the Source."

The world around me seemed to grow brighter, almost fading out a bit in the presence of a great light. The feeling of both tranquility and happiness intensified until it seemed to hit an edge of a sort and began to wobble. I reluctantly let it go, casting the spell when my eyes snapped open from where I had unconsciously closed them.

"Fast Heal!"

I parted with the light a bit reluctantly and watched as a starry nimbus of light traveled from in between my hands and over to the young soldier I had targeted. The mist of light wrapped around him, lighting him up from within like a lantern. He gave a started shout and I startled in alarm, frightened that I'd done something wrong. But no, a moment later he was smiling widely over at me and got up off his cot.

"Thank you Shield Hero!" he said gratefully. 

I was suddenly inundated by hails of "me next!" and "I need healing!" every soldier in the tend clamored for my attention.

"That will be enough of that!" the stern-faced clergy-woman snapped at the young men and women in the tent. 

She looked over at me, still stern-faced, and said

"You should save your power, young woman."

I gaped in shock. So far on this world she was the very first person to have ever correctly identified my true gender right away.

"While they are injured, their injuries are minor and will heal fine on their own," she added. "You should save your power for those who truly need it. I do not see why you were sent over here to this tent when there are more urgent cases in the next tent over."

"It's because that was my first time casting a healing spell," I replied, not wanting her to get the wrong idea about me, and thinking that I was some kind of experienced healer. "I was sent here for me to practice it, I think."

The stern-faced woman relaxed into an amused smile.

"Well then," she said with a shrewd look. "We shall have to see that you get plenty of it."

It appeared she was nothing loathe to use me if I was going to be of use, for she took me by the arm and led me from patient to patient according to her own order and had me cast my healing spell over and over. She offered stern advice and a number of pointers, explaining some things about healing magic as she went along. I listened carefully because my Shield could only tell me so much, and instruction from a woman who clearly new what she was doing when it came to casting magic was valuable. I could only understand a spell by using my interface so much, and then I ran up against the upper limits of my knowledge. 

I cast Fast Heal until my mana ran out, then switched to a shield that boosted my mana regen rate and waited until my mana pool refilled and then cast the spell some more. She let me go as evening fell and I felt positively exhausted. I went back to my room at the inn, pulled a boxed lunch out of my inventory, ate it in bed while curled around my egg, and fell asleep after my meal. I was woken by a regular chirping noise that sounded like my cell phone alarm going off. I woke groggily and felt a strange sensation of movement near my stomach. 

I looked down in surprise to see the egg I'd bought earlier was rocking side to side. I nearly fell on my ass scrambling out of bed to get the beans that the villagers had assured me were sovereign for monsters hatching from eggs. I made it back in time to see the egg give a particularly emphatic wriggle and then the egg cracked right down the middle, falling open to reveal a fluffy feathered head in yellowy-gold fading to white at the edges of the feathers. The bird-creature had wide, beady blue eyes ad looked entirely adorable to me. 

"Hey there, little one!" I greeted it, offering a bean to its beak. 

It snapped up the bean so emphatically it nearly took my finger with it, and down it went quicker than I'd ever seen anything eat before. It raised its head and chirruped at me in a demanding tone, bobbing its head.

"Alright, little one," I said to it, popping another bean into its beak. 

My Shield pinged at the little critter's egg shards left over from its recent hatching, so I took a piece of its shell and fed it to the jewel in the center and unlocked the Beast-Tamer Shield.

**Beast-Tamer Shield +1: Common 1/20**   
**Ability: Growth Boost**   
**Mastery Lvl:1**   
**Equip Bonus: +.01% XP-share  
**

The bird-creature ate the proffered bean, followed quickly by another and another and another. It didn't chew, just swallowed it quickly directly down its throat and into its stomach. It's belly quickly grew so round that it looked like it was due to pop at any moment. Eventually it felt satisfied and with a final chirp and an adoring look at me, it fell into a fast, plump sleep on my arm. 

"Awww, so cuuute," I crooned softly, petting its fluff as i laid back down and curled around it.

I must have fallen back to sleep for an hour later I was woken again, this time by my comrades coming into the suite and making noise. They looked like they'd been out leveling, for Fohl was wearing his armor and his brand new knives looked like they had seen some use. The sound of them coming back into the suite woke my new feathered friend, and she sat up and started creeling hungrily. I pulled out my now much lighter bag of feed and started feeding her again.

"Geeze, how much is she going to eat?" I wondered in amazement as she really put it away, expanding until she looked like she was going to pop.

"Filorials eat frequently and as much as they can hold in them when they first get out of the shell," Fohl commented knowledgeably.

I brightened up, my heart giving a little flutter. I had a chocobo! Or, a filorial. But... yay! I cuddled my new filorial in happy celebration. She cheeped happily at me, not sure why I was excited, but willing to go along with it.

"You sound like you know a lot," I said to Fohl. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

Fohl unceremoniously looked under its tail feathers as my new baby gave an indignant squawk and everyone laughed.

"It looks like its a girl," he said. "Those are really rare so you should try to keep quiet about it or someone will try to steal her."

"Oh, thanks," I said. "I guess I shouldn't give her a really girly name. I suppose Suzaku is out then. How about... Filo?"

"Filo?" Fohl said skeptically.

"I keep having trouble remembering that these chicken-horses are called filorials, I want to call them all Chocobos. This might help me remember."

"Filo it is then," Gyousou said. 

There was an odd sort of look on his face, like he was remembering something that gave him pain and happiness at the same time.

"Welcome to our weird little family Filo," I said. 

She cheeped in celebration and I kept feeding her since it looked like she was happy to go on eating. We turned in quickly for the night, I was still tired from all of the spells I'd cast before. It took a lot out of me somehow, I felt like I'd been swimming all day. I was woken several times that night, like any new mom, by hungry cries, and called to feed my new baby. By the time morning came I had an empty feed bag, and a hungry bird that had grown from the size of a grown sparrow to the size of a medium-sized dog! 

And that's just overnight!" I marveled with the rest of my group as Fohl went and bought a second bag of food.

We got around for the day, deciding to take Filo with us when we went out and did our leveling up for the day. We ate breakfast and discovered that there was _nothing_ that Filo wouldn't eat, not even bird-meat, which seemed like it should be some kind of cannibalism. We headed out into the woods nearby, looking for a good spot to level and work on our party teamwork. When we found a promising area, lots of little monsters of the appropriate level to get Fohl some decent XP, we left the baby with Atla resting on a blanket in a nearby glen, and I started putting my new ranged fighter through his paces.

Fohl was a good shot, no denying that, but he tended to like to pull aggro first before I had marked the targets to establish the order of battle or anything. I took some work to get him to understand how our party was meant to operate because some parts of it were counter-intuitive to common wisdom, so Gyousou and I had to show him over until he saw the value in our system. I marked the targets to establish the order of battle and then pulled and maintained aggro, while he moved out toward their flanks to crit them while they were vulnerable. He was cranky and argumentative about it, and I didn't have much patience for kids on a good day, but fortunately Raphtalia was good enough at getting him to shut up and listen that we started working together better. 

"I guess we don't need to worry about cleaning up the battlefield today," Raphtalia said cheerfully as we saw Filo rush into the area we'd recently cleared and start eating all of the monster remains like some sort of fluffy vacuum-cleaner.

"My drops!" I grumbled in dismay over the loss of materials. 

The critter slurped an intestine and looked over at me cutely and I instantly forgave her. It wasn't like they were high level drops, just shield-fodder, really and not very valuable shield-fodder either. After a short break for lunch, during which I harvested the field for alchemy plants, we went back to our teamwork exercise. After another two hours, we had enough practice on smaller mobs to get our feet under us, and it was time to move on to bigger and better prey. We traveled to another forest glen where there were monsters that were a little bit tougher than the red, yellow, and Orange Bouncies we'd been leveling up Fohl with that morning and started to work on those for a bit. While Raphtalia educated my new young fighter on the basics of team strategy in the field, Gyousou continued my education on how to be a general.

"Like it or hate it," he advised me. "One of the matters you will always bear in mind will be how much you are subject to politics, both with your own captains and among the other generals. You seem fairly observant of people, when you wish to be, you should use that skill more often. Knowing how people are likely to react given a situation gives you a certain amount of power."

"I'm not really in any position to think about power," I replied, scowling. "To the rest of the world I'm just a criminal who they can't get rid of because I have their Legendary Weapon. The people in power hate me."

"You have more opportunities than you think," Gyousou said. "Take the village for example. They are grateful to you and you have earned a good name and reputation with them. You have been able to trade that reputation you've made with them for something you value, information, which has already begun to pay dividends for you. You could spread your influence from there."

I thought about his words instead of dismissing them out of hand. Gyousou had a point. The king ruled the city and his influence was everywhere _there_ , but.... the further I got away from the city, the less inclined the people were going to be to give credence to the word of their king. Every province and village was really more of its own community, the most they would know about the king might be the occasional messenger coming through to post new laws, or the taxman come to take half of their crops, or perhaps the military in the case of a disaster, if they were lucky. The villagers would see their own Elders, and then their knights and lords, as being of more immediate authority than the distant king in the city. 

I nodded, signalling to my impromptu teacher that I was considering his words. We kept leveling for the rest of the day. Fohl, whatever the faults of his cranky personality, was in fact an excellent fighter and he did indeed hit critical shots more often than not when he knew where a monster was weakest. He was quick-witted as well as quick-footed, and he understood on how to keep track of fighting lines and positioning. By the end of the first day, I was feeling better about having him on my team and part of my party.

"My goodness!" I exclaimed when I came back to the blanket that we'd set Atla up on while we leveled int he field. "She's gotten so big!"

Filo had been the size of a baby last night, and we'd woken up to her the size of a small dog. By cleaning up the fields of anything edible, she'd grown to the size of a large ostrich in the space of a single day! In fact, she was large enough for me to perch Atla on top of without any worries that the young girl would be too great a burden. We headed back to Lute village with Fohl on the filorial that he and his sister had previously shared riding next to Raphtalia with Atla on Filo on her other side. I took point and Gyousou got rearguard. The trip back was quick due to the speed of the filorials and we arrived back in the village just as the sun was almost set. 

"I'm for a bath," I said as we deposited our supplies in our shared suite. 

I pulled out some of the meals that I had created using my Cooking Shield and placed them on the table for Fohl and Gyousou to eat while Raphtalia, Atla, Filo and I grabbed our bathing supplies and caught the last hour of the woman's bath before the time got switched to men's. We gossiped about strategy that day while we scrubbed each other's backs and washed our new filorial down as well. Instead of heading back to the inn right away, I played fetch with my feathered Filo in the courtyard of the inn for a little while as the last of the daylight faded. 

On our way back, Raphtalia, Atla and I stopped by the healing tents to offer our assistance. The same stern-faced old woman who had taken charge of me yesterday took charge of all three of us again that day and had me casting out heals until I was dizzy. The old woman seemed strangely and intently interested in Atla, but I had to assume that was because of her frail constitution and the fact that she was blind and crippled. We returned to an empty suite and a note that said that the men had gone down to the baths for a wash and to run more errands of their own. We waited up for them and they were not long in returning. We discussed our leveling strategy for the next few days and turned in early.


	31. On Your Mark...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroine Enters a Race

The next two days were a repetition of the day previous. We ate breakfast at the inn then took our party out to level for the day. We combed the areas around the village an hours or so ride on the back of a choco- er, a filorial, spiraling methodically outward an ever-widening distance from the town. The purpose for our battle-path was two-fold; the tenacity of the enemies increased the further out we went but they were still low-level enough that our young archer could get in his practice. Second, Gyousou insisted that it was important that the Champion of Lute do her duty by the town that had claimed her for their own. I suppose I couldn't argue with either point, so I was game for freeing up the village guard as long as me and my party benefited from it.

On the third day in the village, I was out for a ride on Filo's back early in the morning killing monsters to level up my fireball spell and reveling in how fast my new little Filorial was. To my limited experience to date, it felt to me as though Filo was significantly faster than any other filorial I had ridden on, for certain she felt like she was a better jumper. Riding on her was the most fun I'd had in a long time and it seemed like she really enjoyed herself on our morning run as well. What was better was that I could kill enemies with a fire-spell while I was on her back so it was doubly fun! We could cover the entire perimeter of the village on her back in about an hour, with me taking out mobs on the run. Filo and I found the bonding time lots of fun, it was a good way to get a ride and a bit of power-leveling done in the early morning before the whole party went out for team-leveling. 

"I guess that's good enough for now, eh Filo?" I called cheerfully over to my white-feathered chocobo. "It looks like the perimeter is clear of monsters for the day, so I guess that helps everyone else out, but more importantly, I think my Proficiency in this spell is just high enough to let me purchase a perk for my fireball spell!"

Firo and I rode back into the village to check at the saddlery about perhaps purchasing a wagon for my filorial, since it seemed a more efficient way to travel with a large group of people than renting expensive filorials every day. I noticed, however, that the main village square, instead of being occupied by stations set up for the reconstruction, was jam-packed full of people, with a certain familiar-looking set of troublesome idiots on a dais in the center, facing outward to the crowd.

"...I've been assigned stewardship of this village as a reward for defending it during the Calamity by the king himself. As of this moment, I, Kitamura Motoyasu, am your new lord!" a familiar voice announced. "Please work hard with me to rebuild your village!"

_:Oh brother,:_ I thought to myself. _:It just figures that the moron king would allow an idiot who doesn't deserve praise to run a reconstruction project that he has in no way earned!:_

"We shall start by levying a new tax in this village to help pay for the reconstruction," Mein announced, pointing her nose up in the air and looking pleased with herself. "We shall charge 50 silvers for entering the village, and another 50 silvers for leaving it."

I looked at them both, aghast with shock. They were talking about a tax of a whole gold piece just for basic travel! That was more than an efficient peddler or a moderately successful businessman would see in a _month_!

"Are you _trying_ to starve these people, you morons?!" I called from the back before I even thought to catch myself. "Do you even know what money _is_? Do you realize how much people make, or even how hard they work to make it? You'll cripple their economy within a week, and then, not only will they all be mostly homeless but starving as well!"

"Oh, hey there criminal-Shield!" the spear-idiot greeted me smiling smugly at me. "I got awarded this fancy lordship for doing _actual_ work in the Calamity while you just ran and hid--"

"Mi'lord Hero of the Shield did nothing of the sort!" was a shout of angry reply, unprompted from the crowd of Village Elders and utterly unanticipated by Motoyasu. 

"He was here rescuing our village from the swarm of monsters while _you_ were off doing the gods know what somewhere else," another voice joined in stridently in support. "The only _real_ hero here, is him!"

"Aye!" another person quickly added. "An' he's been bleeding himself dry fending off monsters encroaching on our borders while the town militia helps out the reconstruction. It's because of him that we've been able to work on rebuilding without worrying about encroaching fiends!"

_:Oh... I was just leveling up my fire magic on small fry, but I guess it had that added, extra side benefit without me realizing it,:_ I thought, feeling a bit chagrined that my selfishness looked like altruism.

" _And_ he's also been in the healing tents every night, healing anyone who needs it," another person piped up. "He's a true hero in ways you could only dream! He's been made the Champion of Lute!"

I'd been leveling up my healing spell without having to half-kill my party to do it, but I decided that I didn't mind putting that idiot in his place, and brandished my Champion's Shield as proof of their words.

"Well regardless of how you commoners feel about it," Mein said with a smug look. "Milord Motoyasu has been appointed the lord of this village by the King."

"Well he can do what he wants, but asking for a solid gold for basic travel is complete nonsense," I called back. "In case that head of yours really _is_ just there for decoration, Motoyasu, I'll walk you through the math."

He scowled at me but I ignored him.

"A night stay at a well-off inn in the _city_ is five silvers silvers," I explained. "But money is valued _differently_ here in the village. You can buy five full-sized chickens for fifty coppers and a family can eat for three weeks on them. A farming family of five can scrape by on as little as ten coppers a day if they're thrifty and lucky. A well to do merchant, such as the blacksmith or the saddler, won't see fifty silvers in an entire week unless a caravan blows through with a large order for them and even then, they'll spend half of that on purchasing more raw materials to restock with."

"Blah, blah blah," Mein dismissed. "A painful reform in necessary in order to reconstruct the village."

"You stupi-" Gyousou saved my from saying something just in time, by sneaking up behind me and clamping a hand over my mouth, then dragging me off Filo's back.

"Now now," he chastized me. "I thought we'd just had a conversation about winning over allies."

"Mein and I will never be allies," I growled. "If I ever get the chance, I'll kill her."

He gave me this perturbed look and I stared straight back at him, letting him see that I meant every word I had said. He sighed and shook his head and moved on.

"The Hero of the Shield," he called up to Motoyasu and his party. "Is quite correct. Your tax is ludicrous and the financial burden and loss of trade would kill this village within a month. I would think that your king, misguided as his judgement is often shown to be, would have hoped for better than that."

"Mein?" Motoyasu looked questioningly at my enemy, as though he hadn't thought that a tax that sounded reasonable to him would place an undue burden on the people of the village.

_:Geeze, his head really is just there for decoration!:_ I thought to myself.

"It can't be helped," she insisted, scoffing and pointing her nose in the air at the troubles of mere peasant rabble. "It's necessary for reconstruction."

Then something completely unexpected happened. Mein, who had been acting high and mighty a moment before, was suddenly surrounded by a circle of seven... ninjas? Shadowy people dressed head to toe in black and purple ninja clothes, wearing masks of loose cloth like veils over their faces.

"That will be enough of that your highness!" one of the masked figures announced.

He bowed low to Mein and handed her a decorated scroll, saying

"A certain Master has charged us to give you this should the need arise, that she did. You shall take its instruction or take the consequences of your decision, that you shall."

Mein unfurled the scroll and read it. I was in the wrong position and too far away to read what it said so I turned to Gyousou.

"Do you know anything about those guys?" I asked him.

"No," he replied, looking just as mystified. "But they look like some sort of spy or secret police."

I nodded agreement.

"Did you catch the part about Your Highness?" I asked next.

Gyousou nodded, looking sour.

"It explains a lot of the favoritism and special treatment that the Spear Hero receives," he said in a tone laced with disapproval. "It seems that Mein does not fear royal or legal reprisal due to the fact she pulls a number of strings on the throne itself. Such blatant nepotism should _never_ be allowed in a royal administration."

"I weep for this kingdom when _she_ inherits the throne," I said, shaking my head.

"In-her-rit?" he asked, questioning me.

It took me a minute to recall why he seemed to not know what the word meant, like it was a foreign word he'd never encountered and even his translation magic would not work.

"Oh, that's right! All of the rulers of the kingdoms on your world are all immortal until they loose the way and their poor, dear, beautiful kirin die," I said, remembering what I had learned on his world.

I quickly explained the concept of royal inheritance to him.

"Well, in most other worlds, kings are as mortal as anyone. The continuity of the throne is decided, usually, by the law of primogeniture. The first born, on my world, only the first born _son_ until very recently, inherits the power of the throne and the position of ruler, titular or otherwise. In this kingdom it seems the first born daughter as well may rule, that is not historically the case where I am from."

"I see," he said, mulling it over."What if the next in line is unfit to rule?"

"That depends," I said, shrugging. "Historically, there have been other ways found to neutralize a unfit ruler; sometimes the court may simply choose to ignore the law of succession and pass over the firstborn heir to select another one, though in such cases usually they are careful to find a pretext to declare the oldest unfit for rule, the royal court may try to mitigate that rulers influence, or... well there are always others who are ambitious and ruthless enough to do a certain deed that would clear the way to the throne, though this leads to civil war as often as not and is avoided by the wise."

"If she's is shortsighted and uncaring enough to impose such a cruel and needless tax on a population that cannot support it, then perhaps I should let you kill her. It seems as though it may do this kingdom a favor."

"Why Gyousou, my Sword, was that a joke?" I asked.

He got that dry smile he sometimes got. While Gyousou and I had been speaking of the differing laws of royal enthronement and succession, Mein had been reading the letter, looking more pale and subdued by the moment. I didn't know who those shadow-ninjas were, but it sure was surprising to see the cocky little bitch brought to heel so quickly. I wondered who had written the letter.

"I cannot accede to this!" Mein exclaimed.

She turned to face me directly and rudely pointed her finger at me.

"Shield Hero!" she yelled at me. "Over the right to decide the fate of this village... I challenge you!"

I looked at her flatly. Her stupid Spear-moron had already been given stewardship of this village by the king, right? Why the hell was it necessary to challenge me for it?

_:Unless there's something in that scroll that can supersede even the command of her father the king,_ : I thought suddenly. _:Then... the only way she would be able to save face would be if she challenged me to some kind of contest with the fate of the village as the forfeiture and won it fairly. Heh, that means...:_

"Nope," I said shortly. "I refuse."

She blinked at me in shock, confused at being suddenly so utterly stymied. I took a smug satisfaction from denying her the workaround she'd clearly figured out for herself. There was something in that letter that countermanded even the command of the king, and she had clearly figured out that if she challenged me for leadership of the village and won, then she would not be held to the strictures preventing her from doing what she wanted with the village. As long as I refused to rise to the bait there was nothing she could do.

"Y-You _have_ to!" she said, sounding whiny and plaintive.

"I don't," I replied. "You're the one waving her finger around like an idiot. No-one asked for your help, no-one wants your stupid tax, and I sure as hell am not going to answer your challenge. Take your scroll and shove it."

Gyousou suppressed a short noise of what sounded like laughter before he caught himself. I knew he was trying hard not to encourage my mouthy tendencies but equally amused when I gave someone a good telling off.

The villagers however, all turned and looked at me with pleading eyes.

"P-Please!" they cried out various pleas at me. "You must help us! Save our village once more! You're the Champion!"

_:Geeze, I **am** helping you!:_ I thought irritatedly at them. _:I'm betting that the idiot duo does not have a legal leg to stand on and the contents of that scroll will back me up, just stay quiet!:_

"There's no reason for me to become involved and it all looks like a hassle to me," I maintained indifferently.

"Please Shield Hero, no, _Champion_!" the village elder begged at me. "Save our village!"

I sighed. They just couldn't read a situation, could they?

"It will all be decided by a race between Motoyasu's dragon mount and that weird bird of yours," Mein insisted.

" _Who_ is the weird bird?!" I demanded, offended. 

"Your bird's a freak!" Motoyasu mocked, and I felt my temper starting to ignite on behalf of my wonderful little filorial. "Just look at its _weird_ coloring."

"My Filo is the best!" I shouted back in offense. "Her colors are there to set her apart from the common rabble and don't you forget it!"

"We'll see," Motoyasu said. "Why don't you put your money where your mouth is, or are you too afraid that your freak will lose against me and my beauty here?"

I clicked my teeth at him and said

"Fine... we'll have a race, and when my beauty here leaves your stupid, overgrown lizard in the dust I'll make you apologize to her."

"Ha!" he shouted at me.

In a trice there was a track set up around the village and I was informed that there would be three laps around the track and the rider and mount who crossed the finish line first would be declared the winner and the receive the deed that would award stewardship of the village to the title holder. 

"Alright Filo!" I cheered at my wonderful bird. "Let's do this, they'll be eating our dust!"

I'd have been lying if I said that the thought of the disappointed looks on their faces when Filo and I rolled across that finish line wasn't a motivating factor for me.

"Racers to your marks!" the village elder said.

Motoyasu and I lined up at the start line.

"Too bad about your weird, common bird," he called over to me. "This here is a genuine windrider dragon, one of the fastest mounts available."

"Still just a stupid lizard," I muttered. "We can take 'em Filo."

My filorial made an emphatic chirp of agreement.

"Ready! Set! GO!" the announcer called ringing a gong. 

Filo and I took off like a shot. I had ridden on the backs of some filorials before but those had been sturdy rental beasts, where you didn't want to push them too hard or fast for fear of tiring them out and making them strain something. The renters charged three times the fee for any harm to their birds. I'd never been on the back of filorial that was concentrating its full power on getting somewhere as fast as possible and was frankly amazed that I managed to stay in the saddle. She was fast! The wind whipped through my hair and tore at my clothes with such strength that it brought tears to my eyes and I had to duck my head into her neck and just hang on. When I looked back, Motoyasu was a ways behind us looking shocked and offended that we were daring to defeat him so easily. 

Of course that was when it happened.

A sudden wide divot appeared in the center of the otherwise smooth track and my poor baby's foot got caught in it. She went down hard and threw me from her back where I tucked into a ball and tumbled, bouncing hard on the ground for a bit until I was stopped by a tree trunk. Because of my Shield powers I was unharmed but I hurried back to Filo, concerned she might have broken an ankle or her leg. 

"That hole definitely wasn't there a second ago," I called over to a nearby guard.

The guard very ostentatiously ignored me and deliberately looked the other way. 

_:So that's how it is huh,:_ I thought angrily. _:These corrupt guards and their corrupt king and their stupid princess! So not fair! I really need a way to teach them all a lesson.:_

Motoyasu zoomed past, laughing victoriously.

"...I have read and understood the law, let your power join my Source! Zweite Heal!" I healed by baby bird of any wounds she might have gotten, just in case.

If Filo had looked like she might be interested in winning before, she now looked like a bird on a mission. I was still concerned about her leg.

"Are you sure?" I asked frettfully, looking at her ankle closely to see if she'd developed a sprain.

She looked impatiently at me and presented her saddle. I climbed on and no sooner had I taken up the handholds but she was off like a shot. She somehow managed to run even faster than she'd run before and I was left to cling on like a tick. We caught up with Motoyasu, who'd pulled ahead a quarter of the way while I healed my bird. We caught p to him, and when he saw us coming Motoyasu urged his lizard to go faster. We made the mistake of coming up behind him and the lizards whippy tail smashed into poor Filo's face, knocking us back. I could have swore the beast gave us a draconic smirk as Motoyasu called over his shoulder

"You really shouldn't run behind us!"

Filo let out an angry squawk and poured on the power, shooting up beside and then in front of them. After her burst of speed she slowed only a tiny bit to continue to outpace our competition. We pulled in through the village to the cheers of our adoring crowd and started on the second lap. Filo was fast, but Motoyasu's chump lizard was no slouch either. He was still behind us but not by much.

"Alright Filo!" I cheered her on. "We've got this."

We raced over the first hill and then around the first bend out of sight of the village, Motoyasu keeping up just barely in sight as we hit the one of the two major straightaway's in the course. The lizard poured on the speed and my instincts perked up as I caught sight of two of Mein's guards leaned over and muttering to each other. Their hands moved in a casting pose and I was instantly on my guard. A strange feeling of weight came over me, like I was in one of those amusement park rides that spun really fast to increase the gravity enough to make you stick to a wall. My poor bird started to pant and labor to run, while Motoyasu and his damned lizard shot in front of us. 

"Damn! And I don't know any dispelling spells either!" I muttered. 

Determinedly, my girl ran on, despite the spell that had clearly been cast to slow her down. I was half tempted to go back and light those two guards on fire. Maybe next time around. Fortunately, the spell wore off quickly and we once again resumed catching up to the inadvertently cheating dragon and his fool of a rider. When we pulled through the village and on to our final lap, he was in the lead but not by an unattainable margin. If that horrendous bitch Mein could refrain from cheating for once in her life, we'd stand a chance.

"Come on Filo, we can do this!" I urged her.

We pulled around the first bend into the straightaway and I sighted the two guards that had hurt my bird and helped my enemy to cheat her way into a reward she didn't deserve. 

_:I'm not a woman if I don't get a little revenge,:_ I thought, readying my fireball spell. _:Those two assholes have this coming, for helping keep that little brat in a position of power and abetting cheating._ :

"...Fireball!" I shouted casting it at the enablers. 

The shouts of surprise and pain they made as Filo and I ran past them were music to my ears. Filo gave an approving chirp and poured on a little steam. As we pulled round the second bend into the straightaway, Motoyasu became enveloped in light and the dragon got faster. We had been about to pull up beside him and overtake him but the Haste spell had clearly made him able to maintain his lead. The idiot, unable as ever to read a situation, seemed to have figured that the sudden burst of speed meant that god was on his side, cheered. 

"Huh, we're so much faster now," he said cluelessly. "I guess this means we're winning!"

Filo let out and enraged and indignant squawk, the avian equivalent of "oh hell no!" My girl was determined that she was not about to loose to some chump lizard and his cheaty friends. She dug deep down into her being and poured out every last bit of speed she had. I clung on as scenery whizzed past me and she overtook Motoyasu on his stupid dragon and left them deliberately eating her dust. I felt the now tell-tale pull of a spell being cast.

"Filo! Look out, magic!" I called in warning.

I huge hole opened up a few paces in front of it and I braced myself to fall in. They might have wings, but Filorials, like ostriches, could not fly. I can only assume that it was the power of spite that lifted her up where we belonged for a felt a sudden lurch and a brief floating sensation then a jarring thump rattle through my bones. I looked back to see she'd leaped over the huge hole in the track! Motoyasu's dragon pulled up short and we continued on to the village. I immediately called out that Mein's henchmen had been using magic to cheat and demanded an inquest.

The shadow-ninja's who had apparently stuck around, answered to my demand. They did some sort of magic scan on me and Filo, as well as on Motoyasu, and the hole in the track and declared that Mein was indeed guilty of foul play. The win was awarded to me and Filo ad the scroll of deeded stewardship over the village and its environs was handed over to me. 

It felt pretty good to be vindicated and the look of confusion on Motoyasu's face as he realized that perhaps his so-innocent comrade wasn't on the side of angels was also very satisfying. When Motoyasu started to chide her about her cheating she immediately started to tear up, and exclaim that she had only done it to help him and to keep me from cheating myself because I was a criminal and couldn't be trusted. The look of uncertainty in some of the villagers around me as Mein spread my bad reputation around made the sweet taste of victory turn sour in my mouth. Apparently Mein's guard had gotten out around town and started to drag my good name into the dust by telling everyone what I was wanted for in the big city.

"Try not to pay them any heed," Gyousou counseled me, patting me on the shoulder as I turned my back on the conflicted mutterings behind me so that I could go and give my Filo a well deserved rub down.

"Champion!" one of the village elders hailed me. "Words cannot express how grateful we are for your having stepped in and saved our village!"

"Don't mention it," I said a bit sourly as I stepped into the barn where me and my party had taken up temporary residence... 

Only to discover that we had been summarily evicted from our hayloft. Our bags and weapons and been packed up and put into a tidy pile outside of the barn and the barn itself had been turned into temporary quarters for the royal entourage it seemed. 

"My deepest apologies, Shield Hero," he said, sending us all a look that was genuinely distressed. "As she is a member of the Royal Family, Princess Malty has the right to decree her own accommodations."

"Princess, huh?" I said. "Yeah now it makes sense why the king would not allow me to speak on my own behalf. He wouldn't want the kingdom knowing that his daughter had borne false witness as it would entirely destroy her reputation for integrity."

"Milord?" the Elder asked, ears perking up and wrinkled face looking distressed at the recent news.

"Nevermind about that," I muttered. "There's no way I can realistically do anything about it now. So. Now that Mein and the Spear-moron are no longer decreed the lords of this village, do you just wait until the king puts someone else in charge?"

"As the winner of the contest," he said. "It is allowed that you claim the village as your prize, the Deed of Stewardship was after all, the forfeiture of the race."

I gave it some consideration for a long moment. The notion held some appeal. I wouldn't mind giving city governance a try, I couldn't possibly be any worse at it than Motoyasu had been. But.... I was the Shield Hero and if I wanted to continue to grow in strength enough to face the next calamity, then I really needed to be out in the field grinding monsters and raising my skills. 

I caught Gyousou's eye and motioned him over.

"They've offered me the right to take over and be the lord of the village, you think I should take it?"

"No," he said firmly without even needing to think about it. "You have little experience in governance, you can barely read the writing of this world, and you need to be out fighting to hone your strength for the next Wave of Calamity."

I nodded, having come to the same conclusion myself. I turned back to the village elder.

"The forfeiture of the race was the right to this Deed of Stewardship for the village," I said announced to those still hanging about the square. "As the victor, I hereby decree that the owner of this title deed for stewardship of this village and it's environs goes to the Elder Council and to it's Speaker."


	32. Four of Wands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On Which our Heroine Purchases a Wagon for Filo and Decides on a General Plan

Since Mein had taken over the inn, Gyousou and I reconvened in the hayloft of the stable for some privacy to discuss our strategy for the next leg of our journey. During our time int eh village, we had gotten Fohl up to level twenty, which based on my gaming experience was the point at which the real fighting began. He was going to need further training in how to use his skills and work with a team in a variety of battle settings and types, and he wasn't going to get that kind of experience just spam-killing low-level mobs in the area. We were going to need to range farther afield, but we'd accomplished our goal in coming here anyway, which actually had been to get our new fighter to this point.

"So where to next?" I wondered.

"That depends on what your next goals are," Gyousou replied.

"I've been considering it for a while," I said. "I'd like to find a place with some good prospects for mining ore so I can try out a little more of Motoyasu's modding mechanic. Just upping the rarity on my shields has yielded some good bonuses, but I'd like to augment my weaknesses as much as possible. Modding my shields might be a good way towards this goal. Also, I think that I want to not only level Fohl and find a Healer to complete our Light Party, but I also want to start seriously leveling up my shield's rarity-levels. Aside of increasing my suvivability in battle, doing so might also net me the additional benefit of also unlocking some hidden new shields. I discovered something during some experimentation earlier. On a whim, I decided to spend the EP to bring all of the basic shields that unlock when I fought Balloons for the first time, like Yellow Shield and Red Shield which had only the most pathetic stats, just to see if something happened further on down their Shield Tree."

I'd already drawn out what a Shield tree looked like so Gyousou could see because he couldn't actually see any of my Legendary Shield's menus it seemed.

Gyousou nodded that he was listening and I should continue. So I changed Shield to my new Kite Shield.

"When I upped all of their rarities to Uncommon, it Unlocked this baby," I said proudly. "Which has an Ability called Glide. Glide seems to reduce my body eight to a tenth of what it is normally for a duration of about thirty seconds and it only had a five second cooldown. Furthermore, when I hold the shield up over my head like this," I demonstrated. "It seems to pull the wind under it and lets me float along in whatever direction I'm facing. It's not a powerful Ability, but like a lot of my Shields, it is _useful_. But that's not really the point anyway, the point is that there's a method of unlocking, I guess you might call them Hidden Shields, by increasing the rarities of all the Shields in a known Shield Tree. Some of these Abilities might be powerful, I don't know."

"So you're looking for a way to gain more of this EP of yours in the hopes of Unlocking more powerful or useful shields," Gyousou surmised.

"Well yes, but I have another goal too, and this feeds in to that," I said.

"Go on," he nodded.

"When I recruited Fohl, and I guess Atla too by extension, I promised them that I would use my Alchemy Shield to recreate the potion he stole that they subsequently lost, the Yggdrasil Elixir. My Alchemy Shield is still analyzing it for its components, but my guess would be that these ingredients will not be easy to find, and certainly we're not going to find them around here. In addition I would say that that the Alchemy Shield is almost definitely not nearly powerful enough in it's current state to reproduce the Yggdrasil Elixir for Atla. Which means that I'm going to need to mastery-reset... Master-reset? Masteryset?"

I smiled a little at the pun, because if you spoke the words together real fast they sounded like one word. **Masteryset**.

_:Hm, I think I'll use that as a term from now on,:_ I mused. _:To describe when I max out my Shields mastery then reset it to zero.:_

I shook my head to banish the idle musing and got back to business.

"I'm going to need to do a lot of alchemy in the near future both to gain practice at it and to gain enough EP to keep increasing the rarity of my Shields. Also, on a side note. We're poor."

Gyousou looked at me, nonplussed.

I Shield-changed to Coin Shield and materialized the contents of the coin purse that the king had so grudgingly given to our party for our work in fighting the wave. The purse, which had been about half the size of the ones that the other three Heroes had gotten was not only smaller, but had been half-filled with coins of smaller denominations. Ours was a mixed bag of coppers and silver coins with about half of them being copper. So not only had he doled out a significantly lesser quantity of cash, but he'd also short-changed us as well. It was a good thing I'd had a little saved up from my previous adventures or we'd really be in a tight spot. As it stood, we were going to need to come up with something, and we couldn't do that here.

"As it stands," I said to him. "Our funds won't even buy enough in supplies to last our team for a month, even if we forgo sleeping at inns or any other luxuries. Point blank, we need a way to provide for ourselves because that wretched king can't be bothered to pay us what we're worth. I swear, next one of his villages we come across that's in trouble, I'm leaving them all to _rot_! He can just clean up his own damn mess!"

"I understand that you are frustrated and feel hard done by at the injustice," Gyousou said with an almost regal sort of dignity.

He sometimes got this aura about him, usually when he was gently reprimanding me and leading me away from the Dark Side.

"However," he said. "You cannot willingly make the common everyday people who labor under their King who has lost the Way suffer out of malice aimed at their ruler who no longer lives under the Grace of Heaven. The Way exists in all of us; king or beggar, soldier or thief. It is left to _us_ to follow it, regardless of whether Tentei still acts through your ruler."

I smiled a little bit at Gyousou's reply. It definitely sounded like something that someone from his world would say.

"It seems to me that I can kill two birds with one stone in this case," I said. "I can level my Alchemy Shield by making medicine and other useful potions and we can also make money to augment our own limited funds if we take our adventuring on the road and sell the medicine town by town. This will also take us to better hunting grounds for us to level up with."

"That would address those concerns it seems," he agreed. "The only problem I can see off hand is that we're traveling with an invalid. Atla does her best but she is still too weak to ride any long distances. We'll need a way to transport her in ease and safety. Also, there are five of us now, we cannot all ride one filorial."

"I suppose we could buy a wagon from the village wagoners shop, that would solve both the Atla-transport problem, and it would be more economical than buying a filorial for each of us." I said.

I'd actually gotten lucky with my filorial egg. A young or full-grown filorial could go for as much as two gold pieces, which was a lot more money than it sounded like. I might be able to trade on my good reputation and the gratitude of this village to buy a wagon at a more than reasonable price, however purchasing four more filorials? We simply did not have that kind of money.

"But we'll to buy another cocobo to help pull a wagon the size we're going to need to act as a mobile base and supply caravan," I added, thinking it over. "Filo's too little to even hope to pull one of the bigger supply-cart covered wagons by herself!"

"Speaking of which," Gyousou said. "Why don't you take your little feathered friend and go and look over the selection, while I go and see what sort of information I can gather about good places to find herbs and alchemy ingredients."

"That sounds like a good plan," I said.

I brought Filo with me on nothing more than a bridle, to the wagoners shop and the minute she laid her eyes on the (somewhat meager) selection of wagons in the wagoner shop she seemed to light up almost like a miniature sun. Her eye widened and her crest popped up until it was all the way standing, her feathers fluffed and she stood up tall on her legs and flapped her wings just a little. She was a happy bird!

I looked carefully over the selection, which had been arranged split between one-yolk and two-yolk wagons. The one yolk ones were mostly little more than flat beds resting on a single axle in the middle, meant for conveying loads of produce to market or ferrying other goods elswhere, with the occassional two axle cart for longer distances. The two-yolk ones were mostly mine carts for transporting ore from the local mine, however, there were a few covered wagons that looked like they might do. Filo, standing beside me as we looked over the wagons, seemed to have taken a real shine to one of the larger ones.

It was a big, covered wagon meant for hauling a lot of stock from one place to another. It had four large, metal-rimmed wheels, a removable cloth cover, and the struts were still nice and springy for a smooth(ish) ride. Someone had even went to the trouble to accent it with some green paint for trim, and the cloth cover was dyed green and yellow in a leaf pattern. The wagon, however, was double-yolk model, meaning that it needed two birds working together to pull it as it would be too heavy for one bird alone. Filo fluffed her feathers joyfully, crest up, when she saw it and rushed over, looking back at me with a pleading look. She rubbed her face along one side of it affectionately, then came over to rub her face on me affectionately, then walked back over to the wagon she clearly wanted me to purchase for her and hopped a little in place, chirping and dancing about as if to say, 'just look how pretty we look together, oh mommy please can I have it?'

"Oh, honey, I know it's a pretty wagon," I said with pity. "But it's too big for you to pull all by yourself, and we can't afford to buy a wagon and a new friend to help you pull it at the same time."

I tried to shoo her toward the more modest, one-yolk carts.

"Here," I said in a comforting tone. "Let's have a look at these one's over here, I bet we can find a pretty little one that's just your size!"

It would be a squeeze for the rest of us however. But Atla needed a way to travel with the rest of us since there was no way Fohl was leaving her behind. A cart pulled by Filo was more economical than several new chocobos to feed and water and take care of. Filo, however would not be persuaded over to the smaller carts her size, she planted her feet and began to shake out all of her feathers, as if she were concentrating on something very hard. A weird chirping sort of noise emerged from her beak.

"Filo?" I asked, suddenly concerned that we'd need to find this worlds equivalent of a veterinarian. 

:I knew she was growing too fast, magic or no magic!: I fretted, worried about my little baby.

Maybe I'd pushed her too hard on riding, but everyone had assured me she was fine. I felt guilty thinking she might be sick as her head did this odd swaying thing like the neck of a cobra, and she made this whistling creel, almost like she was hungry. Her crest-feathers stood all the way up and the let out a loud chirp and began to hop-walk around in circles, shaking and fluffing all of her feathers. She pulled in tight and then, with another cry her feathers floffed out in a big, white poof!

"Filo! What happened! Are you okay?" I asked frantically.

She chirped happily at me, fluffing her feathers again, her crest fully popped up. 

"What happened?" Raphtalia asked, looking at the filorial with wide eyes.

Where there had once been a chocobo-like chicken-horse there was now a huge owl-like bird, sort of more like "Fat Chocobo" from Final Fantasy Seven. She was twice as large as any other filorial I'd ever seen, but she looked fast and strong too. She chirped cheerfully at me and fluffed her big, fluffy feathers at me. Then looked back at her chosen wagon. I had to admit, with the mysterious extra body mass she'd put on, she was a good fit for it!

_:Niiice!:_ I celebrated, enjoying the turn of good luck for a change. _:With Filo pulling the wagon, we can use it as a place to sleep instead of needing to rent a room at an inn every time we stop so it'll also save money, as well as giving us some mobility!:_

Our sickly party member Atla would be able to ride in the cart without putting any additional strain on her health and that would go a long way toward soothing my prickly ranger's endless fussing. 

"Alright Filo," I said in a relenting tone. "We'll get the wagon you like."

The Village Elders had apparently left standing orders that I was not to be haggled with _too_ sharply. Also, I had apparently saved the life of the shop-owners nephew, so he called in a cousin of his who was a leatherworker, and they made a harness especially made for Filo. It didn't set us back too badly, even after buying staples and supplies to load onto the wagon.

At Gyousou's urging, we spent one more night in the village, wrapping up loose ends. Fohl, Raphtalia and I went around to all of the shops to purchase supplies and staples for the journey. We had to haggle sharply because we didn't have much coin left after our purchase of the wagon. Then Atla and I visited the Healer's tent one last time to heal up any stragglers left from the Calamity (and to maintain my apparently good reputation in this town). After that we all went over to the bath-house for our last bath in civilization for a while. For our meal before we left, we went to the inn. I had been secretly expecting to have another run-in with Motoyasu and that horrid tramp Mein, but it seems that they'd found someplace else to be that evening, so we were able to eat our meal in peace. 

After a public appearance and some unexpected well-wishes (and tankards of the local brew) at the village pub, I retired to the room to masteryset the shields I'd been leveling.

Because I learned from my mistakes (sometimes) I had set my masteryset to transmute the Mastery to EP automatically as soon as my shield hit max level, thus rolling over the points without my having to go in and manually reset it, risking my having lost any potential points in the interim from not getting to reset it quickly enough. Before the Calamity Wave had struck, I'd used all the EP I had from reseting all of my shields mastery levels to bump up the rarity on all of my primary battle-shields. With the increased rarity came more mastery levels before the reached max level, however they also yielded greater amounts of EP per level too. A common level Shield had a max level of 20, and the ratio of EP per level is 10. So at 20 levels performing a masteryset would yield me 200 EP per reset. An Uncommon rarity shield had a higher max level, however. It had a max level of forty, meaning I would need to fill the proficiency gauge forty times in order to max out the Mastery. However, the ratio of EP per mastery level was doubled, making it 20 points per level and there were forty mastery levels until it capped, so every mastery reset at max yielded 800 EP.

Now because of these two factors, I was sitting pretty at a lot of EP from the recent wave. Tanking all of those monsters and using all of those skills had reset my mastery levels something fierce in a short amount of time. I could just spend all of this EP I had accumulated on bumping up the rarity of a lot of my other shields I used regularly but some inner voice of caution told me to hold back on that even though it was a natural gamers instinct for me to increase my levels as fast as possible. I'd already made a lot of mistakes by rushing ahead without doing my due diligence.It also felt instinctively like I was missing something. My Shields had a lot of useful and disparate shields, but they were all one-offs too, unless you accounted for those shields that seemed to be made to stand in for what would ordinarily have been an entire game mechanic in a video game. The ability Stoneskin was definitely a tanking ability, but it only worked if I changed-shield to Stone Shield first and then used it. Same with the ability from my Rescue Shield called Get Down! (with the exclamation point) that made it so that I teleported instantly to an allies side and took the damage meant for them. That was also a tanking ability but I could only use it if had my Rescue Shield up.

_:I wonder...:_ I thought. _:I wonder if there's not some way to sort of like, detach an ability from a Shield and put it in,like, my Job Menu or something.:_

So I did what any sensible person would do if they had a question and consulted the (usually unhelpful) Help Menu. To my surprise, now that I had learned what it was that I was doing with my Legendary Weapon, it seemed like the Help Menu had decided to start actually being helpful.

_:Which would make sense if the way my Legendary Weapon worked was dependent on my own sensibility of how it's supposed to work, like how the rest of the those guys think this is still one of their video games,:_ I thought as I researched through the Help Menu and made mental notes of things I hadn't known before or had been a little unclear on.

Buried deep in a sub-article about the Job Menu, I did found what I was looking for. To my great surprise and delight it turned out that my hunch was right. I could take abilities out of my regular shields and put them into my Job Menu, but there were pros and cons to this. For one thing, in order to even remove the ability I wanted from the Shield it belonged to, I had to completely reset that shield's Rarity-level all the way back down to the base level, thus wasting all of the EP I'd poured into it to get it to a higher rarity. Only then I could move that shield's skill to my Job Menu. I had the option of removing the ability from the shield while it was still low-level andnot wasting all of that EP bumping up the Rarity, but there was a penalty for this. Every time a leveled up a shield's Rarity I had an option to either pick a new Ability to add on, as I had done with Cerberus' Howl ability, or I could mutate an already existing ability with powerful advantages, as I had done when I had mutated the basic Air Strike Shield ability to Air Strike Dome (which added an additional Healing benefit. Once I removed the Ability from its shield, the Ability remained in basically the same state as it was in when I removed it. This was a much bigger disadvantage than it sounded like. Even if I continued to level the Rarity of that shield, if I took the Ability out too early, then I would loose my chance at being able to access and learn any of these additional benefits for that Ability, and with the higher-level shields, there were some really _neat_ benefits. There was a further limitation preventing me from just picking up all of the Abilities from all of my Shields. I only had a limited number of extra slots in my Job Menu to slot in extra abilities. This meant that I would need to choose wisely, and sparingly.

_:I might actually be able to find or purchase a spell that I can learn that will grant the same basic benefits as that ability, without my needing to use up an extra ability slot, so that's something to consider,:_ I reminded myself.

Also some Abilities were impossible to remove, no matter what. This seemed to be for what in a video games would be considered crafting abilities. If I wanted to use Alchemy, I could only do it by changing to Alchemy Shield.

_:So it seems wise to hold off, for now, on transferring any of the Abilities over to my Job Menu,:_ I decided. _:At least until I can level one or two of them up to Epic or even Legendary to see what I might be missing out on if I seal them away too early. I'll level up the rarity on the crafting shields I use the most, like Alchemy and Cooking and Harvest, so I can net myself more EP as I use them, then I can make up my mind about the Abilities I want to keep as part of my build.:_

This seemed like a wise course of action to me. It was nice to have options though.

With my work with the shields done, I brought out my Alchemy Shield so I could check the progress on that Yggdrasil Elixir I'd set it to analyzing... weeks ago, now.

"Is that the one that will make the medicine?" Atlas asked quietly.

She had been staying in the room with me, quietly practicing a smaller version of a healing spell, while I worked with my Legendary Shields menus.

"Eventually," I said, nodding. 

I checked the Analyze box. In the time since I'd poured the last drop of Yggdrasil Elixir into it the progress bar had filled up about three quarters of the way. That Elixir just _had_ to be a complex, high-level concoction and even though I used my Alchemy Shield a lot (it was mama's little money-maker, after all) I still hadn't leveled it up past Uncommon. It took a lot of EP to level up to a Rare and I'd been spending my EP elsewhere. 

"I doubt I could compound this elixir using anything less than a Rare shield," I said to Atla after I explained to her the differences between the rarities of Shields. "I've been using my points on the shields that will help me make it through the battles, but I promise I haven't forgotten my promise to make your medicine."

"You've been so generous, Sugimoto," Atla said softly. "I know Fohl grumbles and fusses and complains a lot, but he's... he's grateful too, though I don't think he'd be obvious about it."

"Hey," I said, as something I'd forgotten about from earlier nagged at me. "I heard Mein say something about a noble beast and you guys leading an insurrection when she was talking nonsense as she tried to arrest me. What was up with that?"

"Oh..." Atla huffed a tiny sigh. "I suppose it doesn't matter now."

"I'm curious. It's like she thought you guys were some kind of threat to her. Not that I'd mind if you guys were some kind of threat to her. Threaten away, I say!"

We laughed and then Atlas voice got kind of quiet and wistful.

"How much contact have you had with beastmen and demi-humans here in this world?" she asked.

"Not much," I admitted. "Mostly Raphtalia, a few others here and there. That's not odd though, I don't really have much contact with anyone outside the party if I can help it."

"Well you wouldn't know this, but there's a hierarchy among the people of fang and claw," she said. "In the kingdoms where the demihumans reign, the beast tribes all swear their fealty to the leaders of the seven territories that they belong to. The beastqueen is not so much the ruler of the whole kingdom as it is among the humans, as she is the beast-leader who has been chosen by the other beast-leaders as the one who has to deal with interacting with the kingdoms outside the lands of the Pack."

"Oh, so this beast-queen only leads her own section of the kingdom and not the whole thing. What happens when she makes a decision that one of the other beast-leaders don't agree with?"

"That beast-leader can challenge her for the right to over-turn the decision, or the beast-queen can call a Howl of the Pack Lands. When a Howl meets, the seven Beast-Kings and Queens of the Seven Territories all gather together to discuss what new stupid thing is going on in the lands beyond pack lands and what's to be done about it."

"Ah. I see," I said. "It sounds like a very interesting new culture. I'd love to travel up to this northern kingdom and meet the beast-queen there."

"Really?!" Atla said, sounding surprised and suddenly, intensely overjoyed. "You really mean it? We can go back to the Lands of the Pack and maybe howl agin with our brothers and sisters?"

"I don't see any reason why not," I said. "I don't think I want to stick around here in Melromarc anyway. Their King is a tyrant, thier Princess is a lying bitch who nearly got me killed, their court is corrupt and thier church is fanatically against me for some reason."

"I can probably explain that," Atla said. "The kingdom of Melromarc has made teh Church of the Three Saint Heroes the official State Religion. This means that tehy don't acknowledge the Shield Hero as being a legitimate Hero."

"Why not?" she asked.

"A little under a decade ago, when Fohl and I were still very young children--"

"You're very young now," I said.

"We have a growth inhibitor placed on us with our old Slave marks so we wouldn't get any stronger or older. It's gone now so we can start to age and level up. Any way, there was a war between Melromarc and the Lands of the Pack, which is also called Schildfrieden. In our kingdom, the worship of the Shield Hero is the official State Religion. The other three Heroes are acknowledged, but no-one really cares about them. It's believed that the Shield Hero will be the one to save the world from Calamity."

"Sounds like my kind of religion," I muttered. "But you didn't tell me about why Mein has such a problem with you and your brother. Aside of maybe racism. It's racism isn't it?"

Atla smiled a little and said

"Fohl and I are half Hakuko. My aunt and uncles roared leadership of one of the seven territories and they led our tribe, and all tribes who swore their claws to our den, to war against the current King of Melromarc. Our family once held a vast hold in the South of Schildfrieden with many dens swearing claws to our den, but we lost the war and our holding as a result. Fohl and I are the last of our tribe."

"That's so sad," i said. "So you were like a duke and a duchess among your people?"

"Something like," she agreed. "Well, Fohl and I were both too young to roar much less take on any challengers, but he tried to hold the lands when the house collapsed. We got as many of our people to safety int eh Northern dens to swear themselves to new tribes there before the humans finished thier conquest and redrew thier new borders on our old homeland."

There was no mistaking the pain and bitterness in her voice. I couldn't imagine how she must have felt, her family once proud and powerful and noble, now gone, their home taken and lived in by strangers that claimed it as thier own, and themselves the last two of thier tribe and sold into slavery.

"It must have been awful," i said. "being captured and sold."

"Fohl was not captured, exactly," she murmured, looking even sadder. "Event though i begged him to be selfish and look after himself, he said that he had made a promise to mom and dad that he would always look out for me. I've always been sickly, you see. We still had a small den to live in once, but the cost of medicine got more and more. Finally, Fohl sold off the last of the family possessions and gave it to the last few retainers we had, with instructions to take the money and use it to build new lives for themselves, to go to teh north and swear their claws to a new beast-lord. Then, once they had left, he went south, looking for one of the fighting pit-masters. When he found one he thought would do, he went up and offered himself as a fighting-slave for that pit-masters arena in exchange for care and medicine for me."

"So brave," Raphtalia murmured. 

She had been listening in from her spot, rivited by the story of Atla and Fohl.

"I often wish he'd be more selfish," Atla said. "But I know by now there's no use talking him out of it. I just have to be stubborn sometimes or he'll take too much on himself."

"Well when I get my shield leveled and we make your medicine Atla, and after we fight in the Cataclysm of course, I'll make sure he takes time out to relax a little, maybe take his sister shopping if he won't go himself."

I nodded firmly. A good team-leader watched out for morale too, of course.

"Right!" Raphtalia joined in. "And we'll make sure he doesn't just buy new equipment. We'll make him buy delicious food and eat it too!"

"That sounds great!" Atlas said. 

"It's a plan then!" Raphtalia agreed.

"What are you three planning?" Fohl called over from where he sat next to Gyousou, borrowing his whetstone to sharpen his knives since Fohl refused to let me test out my Sharpening Shield on his throwing knives.

"You'll see brother!" Atla called back.

There was a small, soft amused sound from the boy, and Raphtalia blew out the candle and curled closer to Atala's other side. With Filo and her space-heater fluff on one side and Raphtalia on the other, Atla looked as comfortable as a princess with a hundred mattresses. I turned back to my work, using the drops to pump up the Mastery Levels in my Shield and Masterysetting to net more EP. Then I changed over to Alchemy and started Processing the herbs I had in my inventory in preparation to sell them in the next town we traveled to. After a little while Gyousou rose and not so subtly shooed me off to bed with the other girls, stating that we had a long day of travel in the morning. I bid him a good nights rest, and retired to my side of the hayloft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my friends! If any of you are by chance, fans of the Legend of Twelve Kingdoms either the novels (which are excellent by the way) or the anime (which at least has Yuka Sugimoto in it) you might know that those of us like me who have watched the anime and/or read the books were left with a horrendous cliffhanger. We saw the story of Taiki, the Kirin of Tai, select his king and then next thing we know he's back in the normal world with no explanation. We all know something happened, probably something bad, but no-one knows what.
> 
> AND WE WERE ALL JUST LEFT HANGING THERE FOR NEARLY A DECADE!!!!
> 
> What happened to the king? We don't know. Why is Taiki home with his memory gone? We don't know. 
> 
> You think George RR Martin is bad. He could take lessons from Fuyumi Ono. But I digress. The point I'm getting at is that for any 12K fans reading this, having despaired and given up ever knowing what happened... She finally wrote it. "The Hills of Silver Ruins and The Black Moon." Not available upon release in English of course, but our savior comes in the form of Eugene Woodbury who has put up a wonderful translation on his site. Here's the link, make sure you drop him a thank you for his work!
> 
> http://www.eugenewoodbury.com/moon/
> 
> To any fans who haven't read or watched the twelve kingdoms... I highly reccommend it. The books are just wonderful. If you want to know who Yuka Sugimoto is though (or at least this fanfic version of her) you have to actually watch the anime. She's an anime only addition, placed there out of the need to externalize some of Youko's internal conflicts. I just found her to be a really interesting quasi-villain in her own right.


	33. It's totally not stealing if it's bandits...

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> (and that's her story and she's sticking to it.) In Which Our Heroes Encounter Highwaymen and Investigate A situation that the Bow Hero Might Have Left Behind

"Hang in there, Raf," I said solicitously. "Would you like another dose of motion sickness drought?"

"N-no, no I'm fine," Raphtalia demurred. "You don't have to make another."

"Nonsense!" I said cheerfully from my side of the cart where I was using my Alchemy Shield to make potions to keep from being bored while we traveled. 

I pulled one of the stomach-settling elixirs from my inventory and handed it over to her. Raphtalia took it with a murmur of thanks and downed it in one swift gulp. A few minutes later some color returned to her face and she looked much better. 

_:Poor Raphtalia,:_ I thought with pity. : _She gets really bad motion-sickness.:_

Filo was a fast filorial, and she really seemed to love pulling the cart. As a mode of transportation was quicker than walking, but it paid for that by being very bumpy. The wheels and frame rattled over the roads, which also had their share of ruts and potholes, making a bumpy ride even bumpier. It was a good thing Gyousou had had the foresight to buy padding and pillows to ride on, otherwise being jolted around in the wagon would have left me sore and achy every night. 

Because of the king's unfair allocation of war funds, after buying the neccessitites to outfit my party and buy needed materials we didn't have a whole lot in the way of ready coin. If we were going to gear up properly enough to last through the next wave, we needed more ready funds. Thus, I'd decided that since we were going to be traveling around in a wagon anyway, it would be wise to kill two birds with one stone, and simply become traveling merchants. I had an Alchemy Shield to Level anyway, and this seemed like a good way to do that, and make money. For the past week or so, we had traveled from village to village, using the Writ of Vent and Writ of Transport that the grateful Village Council had made out for me before we'd left Lute Village, allowing us official leave to transport and sell goods from town to town. Since I had little knowledge of the local area and not much clue as to what might or might not sell in the next village, I had to be conservative and modest in my investments. 

In between stops at different villages, me and my team took it used the mobility offered by the wagon to hunt out local trouble-spots to earn some quick leveling and monster materials to feed into my shields. It also had the beneficent side-effect of earning some good will with the local townsfolk when we hunted out all of the monsters on their local Hunt Board.

We'd picked a up a passenger in the previous village as word of our monster-hunting spread. it seemed he'd decided that traveling with adventurers who were happy to pick up modest commissions in rural towns was a pretty safe bet as far as not getting robbed and left for dead went. The merchant looked pretty well-off, to judge by his clothes, and the three locked chests he traveled with were heavy enough to need him and another person to lift them. I was betting he was either a banker or a jeweler. Either way it made sense he wouldn't want to travel alone, though if his stock was really valuable, he'd have done better to travel in a convoy, but he was paying me well, so I supposed that was none of my business.

The merchant was chatty, and a good source of information, so I decided to let the risk of being targeted slide.

The journey itself was fairly leisurely. We broke from travel often in order to kill off any local difficult monsters on the Hunt Boards in nearby towns and villages. In the process we often encountered other nests of monsters which we gladly wiped out for free. I got new shields to unlock, new monster materials to help level up my shields, as well as new ingredients for potions or cooking supplies.

"And now you, Atla," I said in a stern tone.

For a sickly kid, she didn't like to take her medicine. I wasn't yet up to high-level or high-quality medicines, but I had stuff that was good enough to treat the worst of her symptoms. She looked like she might have demurred the dose, but her brother was right there beside her, fussing over her like a mother hen with only one chick. She might have been blind, but you wouldn't need eyes to sense how much he wanted her to get better. She drank it down with a face, but her coughing subsided.

We were on our way westward, having heard about a mine out that way that had gone to the dogs (perhaps literally) on account of some local trouble with the nobility in the area. I didn't care one way or the other about the local lord, but I did want to get my hands on some new ores and maybe unlock some new Mods for my favorite shields. 

"Sugimoto," Raphtalia called out, even as I noticed Fohl and Atla both perk up and look sharply ahead.

"Ambush," Fohl said, looking suddenly intense, like a cat that had spied a mouse in the corner of the room. 

The carriage slowed down and I poked my head out. The wagon was surrounded by about twelve rough-looking men who looked like they hadn't bathed or shaved in far too long. 

"Bandits?" I asked Gyousou quietly.

"Bandits," he confirmed.

"Excellent," I said, smiling sharply in anticipation. "I can go Lina Inverse on them."

"Try to have a little mercy," Gyousou said. "Not much, but a little."

"Spoilsport,"I replied. 

I'd been working on my fireball spell, adding on effects and shortening the cast-time and upping the damage. (I didn't really care about the range, and additional effects were just that, additional). I was itching to try out my newly improved magic.

"This here's a toll-checkpoint!" the bandit in the lead called over. "Hand over all of your valuables and you can leave with your lives."

"We're just a humble wagon transporting nothing of value!" I called back. "No need to make this ugly."

"Hand over the accessory merchant and all of his goods!" the bandit said.

 _:That explains why I was targeted,:_ I thought. _:Accessories don't come cheap.:_

"Heeey," One of the bandits said, spying Raphtalia sitting up front. "This ones a cutie for a furry!"

His companion chuckled lasciviously at her and said

"If yer real nice ta us, we'll have some good fun later on tonight!"

"You know what? Forget mercy." I said. " _Fireball_!"

I let loose with a barrage of high-powered exploding fireballs with cast times that had been shortened almost to the point of being magical howitzers. Between me peppering the back-ranks with exploding fireballs to get the bandits to move forward into the slaughterhouse of my two swords, and my ranged fighter taking out the stragglers on the flanks, the bandits didn't have a chance. 

Fohl and Raphtalia worked together to tie them all up with rope from the wagon and Filo loomed over them threateningly. Sadly, they were all still alive. Strangely, they didn't seem all that concerned about being taken before the magistrate.

"Seems like it would be a lot more effort than I want to put in to things to run them to the next town over," I said, idly, covertly winking at Gyousou, who looked back flatly at me for _obviously_ planning something.

I then mockingly brightened with an "I have an idea!" face and said in sugary-sweet tones

"How about we kill them instead?"

"Local law tends to frown upon that sort of behavior, I would imagine," Gyousou pointed out dryly.

The bandits all nodded their heads frantically in agreement.

"They really hate it when people take matters into their own hands," one of the bandits cried out. "They say it makes them look bad, and you don't want to make them look bad, right?"

"Local law should get better about cleaning up their bandit problem," I shrugged unconcerned. "I'm _not_ a paddy-wagon, and I don't have time to waste lugging bandits hither and yon, and then waiting around for the case to go to trial. Killing them all is much more efficient."

"There's no wait at all, you'll go right to the top of the queue!" another bandit protested.

"We're very famous," another chimed in. "they've been looking all over for us."

"You don't even need to load us up," a third added. "We'll be happy to walk."

"They _did_ attack our tribe," Fohl said smiling shrply. "We are within our rights to see the Justice of the Claw dispensed."

"Well there we have it," I said advancing on them with a fireball readied. "Time to take out the garbage."

"Wait! Please! We'll do anything!" the bandits shouted. "Please spare us."

In the end I pulled a page from the book of Lina "it's not robbery if you're robbing bandits" Inverse and looted their hideout for all of their valuables. Raphtalia and Gyousou both looked dismayed but unsurprised, Fohl and Atla seemed to have no problems with it, and my merchant friend looked downright pleased. 

"I commend you!" he said cheerfully. "You have the true spirit of a merchant. To squeeze an opportunity for all that it is worth is an attitude sadly lacking from the youth today!"

" _Merchants_ ," Gyousou grunted.

"In commemoration, how about I teach you how to create an accessory?" the merchant said magnanimously.

My heart fluttered. A new skill! And a useful, money-making one, too.

Later that night, when the Merchant gave me a worn-down nearly used up old file and pliers to show me how to ground facets into a stone and wrap jewelers wire to hold it in place my shield again pinged. 

Shield unlocked!

Accessory-craft Shield +1: Common 1/20  
Ability: Jewely-craft  
Mastery Lvl: 1  
Equip Bonus: +.01 Dexterity

That shield came with another crafting mini-game too. I could take a raw stone or crystal and insert the ghost-image of a faceted jewel inside of it, then use a button press mini-game to grind off all of the sides so that it matched the template image. The closer I was to the image the more proficiency I got and the higher the stats on the end-product were. Once I had my faceted jewel, another mini-game popped up where I selected a metal ingot from my inventory and used a timing game to refine it into wire or different sorts of holders and then attach the jewel to it.

My shield had a template-copy function too, so I could borrow the designs of any template I came across and use them to make my own accessories. As is the case with most things, my first try was garbage, but I was confident I'd get better.

 _:Another reason to head to this village in the west and get more of that Ore!:_ I thought as we dropped the merchant off at his jewelers house in a large town the next day. : _Where there's ore, there's almost always bonus gemstones!:_

That was one more advantage to using my Mining Shield than it's ability to detect veins of ore to mine, as I leveled it up not only did the quality of ore increase, but it also started adding in bonus gemstones as I mined, particularly if I used one of the shield skills on it.

We set up shop for the morning in the same town that we'd dropped the merchant off in, to see if we could unload a little of the stock of potions I'd crafted from raw materials I'd harvested out in the wild myself, then refined into ingredients through the Process function in my Alchemy Shield, then further Compounded into potions. We also had a lice little side-market trading processed herbs, I mostly focused on the top five best sellers, but sometimes we'd get a request for something unusual. The potions sold for more money, but processed ingredients sold steadily enough that I felt it was worthwhile to have the additional, minor, revenue stream.

Looking around at that town, I could see that even the processed ingredients would be a big business. The place was packed, but oddly, it didn't look prosperous. In fact most of the crowd looked distressingly skinny, malnourished and desperate. Gyousou noticed it too.

"These are refugees," he stated to me, speaking plainly. "They might not have great chances here, but their chances are better than the place they've left. We must be getting close to that place we've heard of."

"We're only a day's travel away from the area we'd heard about, where the local lord was supposedly over-thown for corruption" I said, examining a local map I'd bought.

"We should go out and see what we can pick up," he said. "I would not like to rush into the situation blindly."

As was our practice, I had Raphtalia, along with Fohl and Atla, run the little market booth out of the back of our wagon while Gyousou and I went around seeking out rumors around the town. The first place we hit up was the local watering hole.

All we had to do was sit down and open our ears to hear the rumors we were looking for. The whole town was abuzz about what had happened in the next county over, though of course, the rumors conflicted a little. One gossip said that the local lord and bled the town dry, another said that there had been a blight on their crops, thankfully isolated to that valley, and they'd had no harvest that year. One of the refugees at the bar said that it was both of those; they'd had no harvest and that he had heard that the local lord had already sold all of the crops that were supposed to be for emergency back-up to line his own pockets.

All of the accounts agreed that the Hero of the Bow had come and saved the whole town, dispensing justice and casting out the corrupt lord.

All of the accounts also agreed that things hadn't gotten any better, but had instead gotten worse. The much-needed revenue that came from exports from the mines dried up as the miners and their families had starved until they were too weak to work.

"I dunno, what do you think?" I asked Gyousou as we walked back to the wagon.

"I think that we should alleviate the suffering of the miners," he said. "In time, with capable leadership, they can weather a famine or two if they have the extra money on hand from the mines to augment their finances. I do not understand why the new administration did not use these funds as they were meant to have done."

"Unless the new administration is as corrupt as the old one," I replied a bit grimly.

A thought occurred to me that I felt was wise to point out.

"Itsuki's already interfered there once and made things worse, though" I said in a doubtful tone. "I doubt they're going to welcome another outsider sticking their nose in. Do you really think we should stick our necks out and get involved."

"Do you really think that the king is likely to do so?" Gyousou replied archly. "Think of it this way. If you solve the situaton satisfactorily, you'll have another town who knows that you are a Hero worth listening to you, and another town who might ally on your behalf should this kingdom's kind decide to make a nuisance of himself again."

I weighed Gyousou's point. it was a good one. I was hard up for support and I could use a few more allies. On the other hand, I didn't want to have to clean up after that stubborn, foolish bow-moron.

"Plus, you have all of these free supplies," Fohl chimed in, gesturing to where the wagon was piled high with the haul from my bandit-raid. "Even if the town doesn't have much, you can still sell some of this junk to them."

There was a lot of junk. Bandits, it seemed, weren't exactly discerning looters. They'd take anything that wasn't bolted down or on fire. I looked back a the new supplies piled into my wagon and thought about it for a bit. I had a surplus of the magical equivalent of canned goods from the bandits that no-one had been interested in buying.

"Alright, we'll investigate!" I said decisively. "I have a hunch, given how awful the highest member of this kingdoms administration is, that the local lord isn't much better. That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that a bunch of insurrectionist yokels are going to make a very competent government to deal with a crisis either."

"I have some practice with propping up a failing throne, young one," Gyousou said with a grave, far-off look in his eyes.

He got like that sometimes. there was something quiet about him, some sorrow that he had inside that was too heavy to share.

"Then I'll count on you, then, to know what to look for," I said.

We set out, making our way westward to the town that Itsuki had saved.


	34. Administrative Shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroes Clean Up Itsuki's Mess

"Boy, look at this place," I muttered.

It looked like the desert had come calling. There was dust blowing everywhere, sand and grit on the wind, piling up in corners. The houses looked as sad and exhausted as the denizens who still lived in them. There were dogs that had starved to death bloating in the sun, attracting flies. People were slumped in the meager shade offered by doorways, too hungry and tired-looking to do anything but watch us pass with listless, despairing eyes.

"I see it," Gyousou said, a hard note in his voice.

"If we're going to investigate the situation where should we start?" I asked. "I doubt this place has a functioning tavern for listening to rumors in."

"The local civil guard should have records, if nothing else, of the events that happened," Gyousou said. "Whether his operation was a covert coup or not, a civil official would still have needed to take down a report on the matter, if only to get the Bow Hero's testimony as the the nefarious dealings of the lord he overthrew."

"Hm. That sound a little more responsible than what I know of the guy," I said dubiously. "He seems more like th type to show up, throw everything into chaos according to his own sense of justice and then leave without telling anyone."

He'd probably swept his cape dramatically over one shoulder, preened, and then said 'I must go, my people need me!' too. I snorted at the mental image. That seemed a little more like him.

"Then since you seem to know your way around the town guard, I'll leave you here at the Guard post to gather information," I said. "Are you sure you don't want me to stealth in and just gather it covertly?"

"Why do you always want to try the indirect route first?" he asked me.

"It just seems more sensible to do it that way," I said. "If you have some information in hand before you go to them, you'll at least have a better way of knowing who's lying to you. It makes it easier to outmaneuver them if they try to pull a fast one on you."

"Who hurt you?" he muttered, not entirely joking.

"Well, I'll leave Fohl here with you for backup, Raphtalia, Atla, Filo and I will go up the hill to the mansion up there and confront the new sheriff in town, so to speak."

"Agreed," Gyousou nodded and Fohl joined him.

Filo led the wagon up the dusty, pot-holed main street toward what was obviously the house of the local lord. As we approached the mansion it looked like that had been left to wrack and ruin as well. It wasn't quite as bad as the rest of the town, but it was clearly on it's way. Some of the windows were busted out, weeds were growing up through all of the cobblestones, ivy was overtaking the walls and the gardens hadn't been trimmed back in a long time. There was a general aura about it that said it the staff hadn't been keeping up the place. It probably didn't have any staff left.

"This place looks like we could hunt monsters!" Filo observed cheerfully.

"This place looks like it should be on an episode of Scooby Doo," I muttered.

And speaking of investigating mysteries...

I rung the bell in the courtyard (which was barely hanging on to it's holder). Ostensibly, I was there to summon the Lords Factor to announce any goods that I had brought to trade and to present my Writs of Transport and Vend for inspection by the local official. I would be willing to bet money I didn't really have that this place was the new nesting ground for the new boys in town.

:Whoever these new sheriffs are, they sure don't look like good housekeepers,: I thought. :This place is a dump.:

Now that could indicate one of two things. Sometimes when the wealthy and powerful face the threat of the destruction and decay of their way of living, they cling even more tightly to the trappings of their power, and become min-despots, rigorously demanding that everything be kept exactly the way they were used to. Their homes and palaces were spotless, their staff looked impeccable, while everything else went to shit around them. That was what the King of Kou had been like, rigidly insistent upon cleanliness and order in the palace even as his kirin died of shitsudou in front of him.

_:But maybe I could be wrong,:_ I tried to think optimistically. _:Maybe the reason they haven't bothered to keep the place up is because they're pouring every available resource into trying to ease the suffering of what's left of the local population.:_

I looked around.

_:I doubt it though.:_

It took a few minutes of us waiting in that dusty, windswept courtyard, but finally the newly instated replacements for the local lord decided to show themselves. What appeared before me were not earnest-looking young revolutionaries. This was not Hamilton and Lafayette, this looked more like the sorts fo drunken rowdies that had taken over the small village in the move the Samurai Seven. They were all lean, rugged men who looked like they come down from a mountain bandit lair to kidnap some women, shoot up the town and drink all of the booze. They were all also clearly drunk, probably on the previous tenants wine cellar, and were eying Raphtalia in a way I didn't like.

_:Sucks to be a pretty girl sometimes,:_ I thought, glad I was traveling as a boy. _:Needless to say these louts definitely don't have the look of earnest revolutionaries about them. Sheesh, Itsuki, you take the word of guys like these over looking into things for yourself, really?:_

I'd bet that justice freak hadn't even run any kind of background check or tried to investigate the lord on his own to see if things were as he was told. He was one of those overly honest to the point of ignorance types, and it probably hadn't even occurred to him he might have been tricked. Idiot.

Then I paused and remembered. I was once the exact same idiot, who had made the exact same mistake. Only instead of a gentle, kindness being the root of my misjudgement it had been arrogance, envy and entitlement. I reminded myself firmly not to judge Itsuki too harshly, because if I was going to point a finger at him, there were three more pointing right back at me.

"We're here to clear our Writs of Vend and Transport with the local official," I said, not climbing down from the wagon. "Where is his lordship?"

"Why doncha let that sweet little fluff down here so we can clear things up?" one of the rowdies asked, giggling drunkenly. "We'll take real good care of you."

:Ugh!: I thought, lip curling in disgust. :I'm not going to feel even a little bit guilty when I take out the garbage.:

"I won't deal with the town drunks, and I won't ask again," I said in my most commanding tone, speaking slowly so that the idiots could follow me. "Where. Is. The local lord?"

"As far as the little girlie here is concerned, she can call me milord," one of the drunks said. "She can call me milord all night!"

He tried to reach for her and Raphtalia's rapier whipped out in a whistle of sound. The hand that reached her was suddenly a bloody stump. The man could only stare in shock, it took him a minute to even scream.

"Ah! My hand!" he screamed. "She cut off my hand!"

"She'll aim lower if you don't answer my question!" I snapped. "What happened here?"

"You crazy bitch!" one of the handless man's comrades shouted as he tried to staunch the blood. "We'll do you for that! An' we'll make it hurt."

I had a fireball readied to roast him with, but Raphtalia beat me to it. My girl's rapier was a blur of motion and that man suddenly had a new mouth carved into his throat. She pointed her blade at the rest while I beefed up my fireball threateningly and the rest of my team reached for their weapons. The lads visibly paused.

"No-one move," I commanded. "We vastly outclass you, and if it comes to a fight none of us will hesitate to kill you. Your precious Hero isn't here to save you. Answer my questions and we'll only hand over to law enforcement."

They looked angry and frightened, but remained in place because Filo looked ready to eat some of them and Raphtalia, for a change, looked just as eager to do some damage. That's my girl!

"Now," I said, dissipating my fireball. "Tell me what happened here. You are clearly not the proper Civil Official selected by the Crown to administer this area, where is he or she?"

"He were a scheming old man who bled our town dry for every last penny he could take," one of the rough-looking would-be revolutionaries said. "We had a famine that ruined our crops and when we went to ask the local lord to distribute our rightful emergency supplies, there was nothing in the granary cuz he'd sold it all to make himself richer."

_:That's the party by-line anyway,:_ I thought. _:And it's probably the story they all fed to Itsuki.:_

Looking around at this poor town, it did seem to line up, at least on the surface. The town did look impoverished and rife with famine, but still, something didn't look quite right. I wasn't Itsuki, and I wasn't going to run around acting without at least researching the possible causes and consequences first.

"Are you the group who asked for the Bow Hero's help then?" I asked next, continuing the interrogation.

They looked like they might have protested, but Raphtalia brandished her rapier at them again and the looked at the body of their fallen comrade. I gathered up another fireball and looked at them significantly.

"Er, yeah," the leader of the would-be's said in a grudging tone. "We couldn't last any longer under the despotic rule of the old tyrant. We snuck into the palace and managed a coup. His Legendary Weapon removed the old Lords Administrative Privilege and handed over the City Seal to us."

My eyes narrowed at this. Judging by the words that the rowdy had just said, it looked like lands officially claimed by the crown could be administered and developed sort of a lot like one of those city-builder sims I was fond of. If this was true then they probably held records, accurate ones, of what happened.

"Fine. If what you say is true, I want to see the account books," I said, not trusting the would-be's word. 

After all, anyone could make anything up and find a way to justify it after.

"Fuck you!" the would-be whose hand Raf had cut off.

I was about to light him on fire when a dagger suddenly seemed to sprout from his throat in a spray of blood. I looked behind me in surprise to see sickly Atla with one of her brother's daggers in her hands, which was doubly amazing because she was effectively blind from her illness. She looked back at me with no regret in his eyes.

"My brother and I have sworn our claws to your den," she said seriously. "You have denned us well and honorably, offering meat at your fire and rest under your protection. None shall insult you in my presence."

"Well thanks Atla," I said in approval for a neat job and some loyalty. "But if you try to kill everyone who insults me, you're going to leave a lot of corpses in your wake." 

"Hey, I know who you are," one of the other would-be's said in dawning realization as he saw my shield and made to connection. "You're that criminal Shield Hero!"

"At you service," I said with a mocking bow from the waist. "Now take us to see this Town Seal of yours, and no-one gets hurt. Well, no-one else anyway. I'd like to have a closer look at the official record."

"H-Hey, we can all be reasonable about this, right?" the lead cowards stuttered fearfully. "There's no need to resort to violence, we're all reasonable people."

"My request was reasonable," I gritted, growing hot and tired of waiting. "And I'm getting bored with making it. Take me to the old lords records, or I'm going to get my daily body-count in. Gotta get my steps."

The boys quailed, they definitely had something to hide. 

"W-we'll pay you! Fifty silver. No! A hundred silver!"

I narrowed my eyes at him. 

"That's an awful big bribe to offer off-hand from people who are having trouble making ends meet," I muttered. "Raf, Filo. Search 'em!"

The raccoon-girl and the large filorial worked together to round the seven remaining drunks up and detain them.

"Filo, take Atla on your back. Pile these losers into the wagon so we can guard them easier and transport them to town. It looks like I'm a paddy wagon after all this time. Stay here and guard the prisoners, I'm going to find the Town Seal and have a look at those records."

"Understood," Raphtalia said. "Be careful in there, there might be more."

I pulled up my Stealth Shield.

"I never planned on strolling in the front door like a moron," I said.

I'd only tried knocking first to get the lay of the land. I'd only engaged the opposition because they'd attacked Raphtalia first. My original plan had been to get a head-count then come back later when everyone was probably drunk and asleep to search through thier records quietly and see what was what, then get with Gyousou for some advice on how to proceed.

I stealthed around the local government office/private mansion of the local lord. It was easy because the interior was dim, there were no candles and they had closed all of the curtains. That was not to mention the dust everywhere. And that wasn't even mentioning all of the evidence of very clear and obvious drunken shenanigans. The mansion looked like it had been turned into the local frat house. There were broken chairs littering the rooms, furniture, bedding and cast off clothing from some kind of drunken nonsense strewn all over the place. My nose picked up a lot of urination in the corners (and the potted plants were all dead from being pissed on). There were empty bottles of wine, probably all raided from the cellar like crazy frat boys, littering everywhere, and the real mini-game was not tripping all over them all. At last, I found the main office and used my Lockpick Shield on the locks. It did not escape my notice this was the only room in the house that didn't look like the aftermath of a wild house party.

I carefully looked around the bookshelves lining the walls, then moved on to the desk. It was when I picked the lock on the central door of the desk that I thought I found what I might be looking for. It looked like a giant ledger from the outside, made of red leather binding with gold embossing and jewels stuck to the cover. In a small box next to it was a seal-stamp with the signet of the Crown on it, probably for official documents. My Shield pinged at me and the seal and ledger both lit up in my sight.

Curious, I picked up the seal and realized that, thought the bottom half looked like one of those old wax-seal stampers (ordinary enough I supposed), the bottom half was shaped kind of like a weird key. I looked at the flap of the ledger keeping it closed and sure enough, it looked like it was supposed to fit. I picked up the seal, intending to unlock the book to see what was in it, when the seal sent a shocking jolt through my hand. Clearly, only the person the seal was registered to was allowed to see it.Then... my Shield pinged at me.

Unlike with most of my other shield unlocks, this one didn't actually dissolve the seal into its central jewel, rather, the Shield just changed to a clipboard with a feathered inkwell sticking out of the top of it.

**Shield Unlocked! Administrative Shield!**

A whole bunch of screens that at first, looked like my usual status menus, or the screens that I used for my various crafting games and inventory sheets, popped up in front of my vision. On closer look however, I saw that instead of having anything to do with my shield, these screens looked like the various management screens and tabs that I saw on a typical town or city management game. There was stuff for like, population, and sanitation, water, education, production and inventory, transportation and so on. It was a town-builder game and the name of the town was Laccara, which was the name of the local town we were visiting.

When I went to go and click on one of the screens to see what kind of changes I could make, however, the screen turned red and a notification informed me that I was not registered as an Administrator to this node, and that I was not allowed to make changes. I could however, I soon discovered, access the official town records. I tabbed back through the years of the towns food production, and then tabbed through the years of the storage and granary menu, comparing them to what should have been in the granary.

_:Well **someone's** lying!:_ I thought, feeling both a bit let down and a bit mystified.

There _had_ been food grown in the years before the famine, the records showed, and the lord assigned to the region _had_ been taking in the proper tithe against emergencies. The food storage menu showed that the food had been stored away as was proper. So whatever happened between the lord having taken in and stored away the proper emergency tithe, it hadn't happened on this end. I copied the information into my Book Shield for record keeping and then stealthed back out into the main courtyard.

I rejoined my companions to discover that Gyousou and some of his new Civil Guard buddies had shown up. The would-be revolutionaries were now more properly secured and the guard had chosen three of the more knowledgeable (or maybe just the three most sober) and were questioning them about the events that had preceded and proceeded their involvement with the Bow Hero. Gyousou, in particular, was interrogating them like a pro. He'd done this before. I walked up to him and showed him the copies of the records and administrative work that I'd found and reported to him my findings. Apparently, this seemed to settle a few inconsistencies for him, and Gyousou was able to line up his questions in a more pertinent direction. It wasn't long before he got the whole story out of our little greedy little revolutionaries.

As the official records showed, the old lord had not been embezzling, nor selling off the food supply. However, he _had_ had a disgusting appetite for girls who were just below the age of consent. Whatever his disgusting sexual predilections were, the Government Official had at least been honest and above-board in his dealings with public affairs. The "insurrectionists," however, had been secretly running a grifting scheme, where they waited until the grain had been reported and inspected, _then_ they skimmed off the top _while_ it was in transit to the granary. Kind of like the Italian Job, only with flour instead of gold. They took this bit of excess and sold it on the black market at a profit. That operation had been in danger of drying up and being discovered when the famine had struck and suddenly everyone needed the contents of the granaries, and whoopsie daisy, there's not the right amount here, and not enough to feed the townsfolk! The lord had known, down to the ounce, how much was going into storage, and he inspected shipments randomly to keep his employees honest. The grifters, had paid the man who handles the lord's schedule to arrange tip-offs and distractions when they needed to move goods. The lord would have known where to look in the supply line to find where the food was disappearing from and it would have been their necks on the chopping blocks. They needed to get rid of him, quickly.

Hearing about the Bow Hero and his zeal for undercover justice had given their leader the idea of approaching Itsuki with the story about a "corrupt lord" who'd bled the town dry to line his own pockets. They'd taken Itsuki on a carefully guided tour, showing him "evidence" of the local lords crimes. The capper, of course was the very real testimonies of the (very!) young women, still girl's really, that the local lord had lured or trapped into his bad. It hadn't taken much more than that to convince Itsuki that the local lord was corrupt and deserved to be removed from power. Under the guise of over-thowing a corrupt regime, they'd used justice-boy Itsuki as a catspaw to install themselves as the new power. The presence of a maiden in distress in the lord's mansion had leant veracity to the insurrectionists tales. So it went. Bow Hero had moved on, secure in the knowledge of his own righteousness, and now the foxes were fully ensconced in running the henhouse!

"So the local lord was a pedophile, and no-one did anything about it?" I muttered.

The town guard looked away, shamefaced.

"Tis nae what we'd hae wanted, lass," the Guard captain, with his strong rural accent said. "He bae stealin' our wee lassies fer his own sick pleasure, y'ken. But an Official appointed by the Crown is not so easily removed from power without the cooperation of the Crown. And since we were facing famine and Calamity..."

"You were forced to pick your devils," I nodded, understanding.

I had seen in my travels that it was possible to be _both_ a capable administrator _and_ an absolutely terrible person at the same time. I absolutely believed that the previous lord had been both a capable administrator _and_ a pedophile. I also knew that local guard, without a king or ruler or justice system worthy of the title, was limited in what it could achieve. Part of me couldn't blame Itsuki for seeking justice for the girls of the town. Who knows, if I had come upon the situation, maybe I might have sought to do the same, maybe. But the fact remained that he'd just went along with the first person to complain to him without taking a closer look at things and now everything was a mess.

Gyousou, oddly, seemed to have stop-gap measures well in hand. To the point that it felt like he must have done this before. A lot. He handled things smoothly, with the ease of long practice. The insurrectionists were taken into custody and locked in the towns single jail cell. Next, a town gathering was called int eh main square, where they held a vote of hands through the village to put the local guard captain in charge until the civil official from the big city got there. As soon as the Guard Captain announced the remaining would-be insurrectionists were taken into custody, there was a suggestion that, since their guilt was already proven, they should just be disposed of on the spot, no need to wait for a Magistrate.

_:Rural villages always seem to be more independent than their larger city counterparts,:_ I mused to myself. _:With the downside of that being that they run cloudy with a chance of lynchings.:_

"On that note, I think we should clear out," I said as the crowd began to gather.

"You don't want to stay and help the guard bust this up?" Gyousou said.

"Nope. That's his problem to deal with," I said. "I try to stay out of snake pits and political arenas for pretty much the same reasons... it's dark, it's scary, the mentality of the residents is uncertain, and I'm almost guaranteed to get bit."

"It would be bad for the authority of the new local governor if we were seen to be holding his hand through things," Gyousou agreed reluctantly.

Suddenly the mental image I'd had earlier of Itsuki majestically sweeping his cape over his shoulder and saying "Now I must go, my people need me!" popped into my head and I wondered if maybe I wasn't just clearing out before things could implode again. Maybe if I left right now, that would make me still no better than him. But I couldn't stick around and it would set a bad precedent if it looked like I was needed to prop up the new power in town. I also remembered that I wanted to mine the mine nearby. I still needed to get a permit from the town.

_:Damn, I guess I'll have to figure something out,:_ I thought. _:These people are starving for justice, and to a poor man, burning someone who'd robbed them at the stake would look an awful lot like justice.:_

Wait, they were hungry. Probably more hungry for food than they were for a good lynching. I could work with that.

"But... I suppose it wouldn't hurt if we made a distraction to take their minds off things," I said. "Raf, Fohl, I want you to lay out the blanket and pull out those crates and barrels of preserved foodstuffs from the wagon."

"Weren't you going to sell those in the next town over to make money?" Gyousou inquired a bit archly. "You look like you're getting dangerously close to running a charity outfit."

I scowled at him for the insult and he chuckled a bit at the look on my face.

"What charity?" I replied. "I'm planning on mining their mine for the best ore. This is practically a free investment."

The proposed lynching was forgotten, or at least put on hold, at the sight of food offered for the low, low price of allowing me to mine their ore to my hearts content. The townsfolk were overjoyed at all of the foodstuffs I was willing to offer. The city sheriff (or I suppose the new lord pro-tem) was a little more aware of the inequality of my offering, but at this point, it solved his immediate problems so he was willing to let it slide. He was not, however, willing to sign a Writ that allowed me to mine in perpetuity, which was a shame, but understandable. Gyousou sent me a dryly disapproving look for my trying to get one over, but you couldn't blame a girl for trying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was originally much shorter, but then I liked the idea of the Administrative shield and it seemed to fit pretty well with the basic lore of this world. It just took me a while to get around to editing it, because I've been bust writing on later chapters. 
> 
> Fair warning, the story takes a turn. Like, it kind of more or less follows the events laid out int he manga and anime, sort of, but I took my own interpretation with some of the world-building. I chose to concentrate on things that were more interesting to me, and ignored others I didnt like or care about. Also, there are some different ideas I'd thought would be neat to put in from a story-writing perspective (some of which kind of took on a life of thier own) but the basic structure of events oddly, doesn't change much until after the Melromarc Arc.
> 
> So, if you're looking for a faithful reproduction of the original manga novels or anime, I hope by now you've gathered that this ain't it. However, if you want something new and interesting to enjoy, I hope you'll stick around. I've got lots of cool things ahead.


	35. Chapter 35

The next morning, my team and I set out for the mines. As Gyousou had thought they might, a lot of local youma had moved into the abandoned mines while the surrounding population had suspended their work on the seams due to starvation. The monsters had also somehow mutated by proximity to the local ore, wit the result being some very tough enemies. In this world, tough enemies meant good drops, and I was there to get materials for strengthening my shield, so it was a win-win for me. 

Gyousou and I took the opportunity to get the team sorted into their roles and began battle-drilling them to educate them in the proper flow of battle. It was the perfect time to drill into each of their heads that all-important, cardinal rule of proper dungeon-running etiquette... Thou Shalt Always Allow the Tank to Go First! (that and, never split the party). In the case of mobs I would mark the enemies before engagement to establish the order of battle, then rush in with my provoke skill. Once they were properly aggroed, Raf and Gyousou would each pick a flank to keep them all in a manageable pile then start working their way down the queue. Fohl, as our ranged DPS, would mostly herd in the stragglers from the sidelines to keep them where we wanted them. The enemies were tough, but by the end of the second day out there we'd established a nice rhythm and were well on our way to being lean, mean, damage-dealing machines. 

In between mopping up mobs, Gyousou, Fohl and I mined the seams, me with my shield minigame and the other two using more conventional methods. Gyousou seemed to know what he was doing and it made me wonder if maybe he'd been a miner back in the world of the 12 kingdoms. Either way, we came out with a pretty good haul. I'd also discovered some herbs that were useful alchemy ingredients nearby so I spent many a happy hour out with my Harvesting Shield collecting them. By the end of the third day the wagon was full, the mine had been cleared out and the local fiends had been decimated, and my team was ready to move on to bigger fish.

"Greetings, travelers!" the captain of the guard who had been voted in as the town governor protem said.

It was our fourth morning there in that little town and I had sat my team down in the tavern and ordered a big breakfast for us all before we moved out. Gyousou and I had our map laid out on the table and were discussing where we might go for our next leveling excursion.

"And to you," I said with cautious politeness. 

The Guard captain and I had been able to take one anothers measure while we'd been haggling. He knew that I hadn't helped his village out of charity or justice, but because I'd wanted access to his mines, strangely enough, he didn't seem to think that this made me untrustworthy. That was unusual, because every other settlement I'd come across and helped out seemed to think I should do it for free just because I was a Hero. The Captain didn't seem to mind my mecenary zeal however, I suppose that might be because I was a woman of my word, and if I said I'd kill monsters then I'd kill monsters. For my part I didn't have any strong feelings one way or the other about the captain, he seemed like he'd be good at his job, and he didn't let people push him around, and he didn't give in to wheedling either, so all in all I cautiously approved of him.

"I have news, and a suggestion," the protem governor said straightforwardly.

_:It figures that Gyousou would pick another straightforward soldier like himself,:_ I thought in amusement.

"I'm open to suggestions," I said careful not to make promises.

"First of all," he said, sliding a small slip of paper across the table.

I eyed it cautiously. Gyousou and the protem governor shared an amused look.

"It's a local recipe for a highly effective weed-killer. The plants around here can get... feisty," the protem said. "We generally keep that one a local secret as it makes a pretty penny for our alchemists, but I'll entrust it to you as a last thanks for sorting things out here."

_:Ooh!:_ I brightened. _:New Alchemy recipe!:_

"In addition, I'll give you a tip on where to go next since it seems you've an eye for making money," he added.

"Well the king wasn't exactly generous with his war-funds," I said bluntly. "And I've nearly got a full Light Party to feed." 

All I was missing was the Healer.

"Filo eats everything in sight and I've got a wagonful of growing fighters," I added. "I would appreciate the tip if you're willing to share it."

"I've heard rumors about a village to the south of here that's been over-run by... well, according to the batch of orders to our town alchemists... it's been over-run by predatory plants!"

I stared for a long moment, not quite believing him.

"Plants?" I said. "Like what, like venus fly traps or something?"

"I don't know what a venus fly trap is," the protem said. "But I'd say that, as impossible as it sounds, there must be some truth to it. They wouldn't have ordered so much of our special weed-killer without need."

I thought it over, then looked a question at Gyousou, silently asking his opinion on the matter.

"We should check it out," he advised with a nod to me.

"If nothing else, I can make money off weed-killer and raise my Alchemy shield!" I said.

Speaking of raising my Alchemy Shield. It should hopefully be just about done analyzing that Yggdrasil Elixir from the Church.

When we set out to the town in the west I left Fohl and Raphtalia up on the front bench together. Between their heightened senses of smell and healing, they were the best of my team to put on point. Gyousou kept an eye out from the back to make sure no-one snuck up behind us. Atla, the poor dear, was confined to bed in the wagon, which was now quite crowded with all of the ore we'd mined and the baskets full of herbs I'd harvested. 

With my team on the look out, I started the somewhat tedious chore of using my Process screen to process all of the raw materials I'd harvested into alchemy ingredients. I was looking to mastery-reset it enough times that I could up it's rarity to Rare in preparation for compounding that Yggdrasil Elixir for Atla as soon as my analyze function finished analyzing it. I checked it each morning because it was getting close. That morning it looked to be at about ninety percent, and I told her that hopefully we should have the ingredient list in another day or two.

We stopped fairly frequently along our journey to the west, not just to rest and take care of business, but also to get some fighting time in by hitting up local monster nests. My team was really starting to come together, it felt. I however, sorely felt the lack of a functioning, specialized Healer for our party. We were making do with my own healing spells and the potions I compounded, but I had to keep the bulk of my skills concentrated on maintaining aggro so that the rest of my team could do their jobs. It was fine to pop a healing spell every now and again for the lesser mobs, but if we went up against a powerful boss without a Healer, we might be in trouble.

Still I said nothing to the rest of my team about the lack as they all seemed in pretty good spirits. Gyousou was essentially my second in command (or probably more accurately, the power behind the throne as it were) and he knew of my troubled thoughts on the matter. 

Added in to all of this, it looked like Filo was hitting another growth spurt. She was eating absolutely everything in sight that wasn't nailed down or on fire. I'd had to hide the herbs from her or she'd have made herself sick by now. Fohl, who was the closest thing we had to an expert on filorials, didn't know what was going on with her. I would need to have her checked over at a filorial stable when we reached our destination because there weren't any sizeable towns along this route between there and here.

"Wow!" Fohl exclaimed as we topped a rise that led down into the valley and took a look around.

The last road-sign we'd passed said that there had been five more miles to go to reach the town we'd heard about that needed the weed-killer. I'd made up plenty of weed killer, but I was now concerned that it was all for nothing. 

The place looked like it had been over-run by killer khudzu. 

Telling Filo to take it slow, we made our way carefully over the rutted road, parts of which looked like they'd been dug up by roots. Some of them were so bad that we had to haul out the boards we used for getting our wheels out of ruts to form a ramp to help ease the wagon over the jut. That wasn't the worst part. If we got too close to the edge of the road, the nearby brush started to rustle and sometimes vines tried to creep at us. Filo, however seemed to view this event more as an opportunity to snack, for hissed at them for getting too close to her precious wagon and promptly snapped them up. I fussed at her at first for eating strange plants off the ground, but she seemed unaffected by them so eventually I gave up and let her eat them if she wanted them. She was a bird after all, maybe they had some kind of delicious seed.

"Look there!" Raphtalia said, pointing ahead. 

Gyousou and I both poked our heads out through the front next to Raphtalia and Fohl to see a rough settlement of tents that had been surrounded by what had probably been meant to be a palisade wall, but now mostly looked like a trellis. There were vines everywhere. Some of them had weird fruit that looked like it was pulsing, others had chompy little fly traps, others had huge, hibiscus-like flowers the size of cabbages. 

"I like it not," Gyousou muttered. "Filo, if you would please, get us to that settlement as quickly as you are able."

The growing filorial gave a happy chirp and put on a burst of speed that had the rest of us hanging on for dear life. 

The walled settlement seemed to hold many ill and injured in their tents, and we were greeted by what had been the village elder.

"I see why you need so much herbicide," I said, climbing down and manifesting all of the bottles of plant-killer I had crafted along the way. "But... what happened to your village."

"After the First Wave," the village elder said. "A famine struck our lands and blighted all of our crops, rotting them in the fields. We were afraid we'd all starve. Then the Saint Hero of the Spear showed up, like a savior out of legend. He told us that he had gotten a mythic seed that would solve all of our problems and we would never go hungry again."

I exchanged a look with Gyousou then looked around. It looked like things hadn't turned out quite the way he'd expected. It was just like the idiot to rush in without thinking things through.

"At first, the new plant that grew up out of the ground was everything he'd promised," the village elder went on. "It grew fruits and nuts that could feed the whole village and then some, tubers grew from its roots that could be stored away for winter, the flowers it grew could be used to heal the sick. Then it slowly started to change. The runners grew up and started snatching the village children. It turned into a monster! We tried burning it out but it grew back. We even tried calling on adventurers to come to our aid, but it defeated them too!"

"Worse yet," the village elder's wife cried out. "The plants vines have taken over our young and elderly, and is using them for a mobile host!"

_:There's something new!:_ I thought, surprised. 

"That plant must have somehow turned parasitic as well," I muttered to my team.

Fohl and Raphtalia stayed with the Filo and the wagon to help distribute the herbicide while Gyousou, Atla and I followed the Village Elder and his wife into the tent where they kept the sick. Despite her physical frailty, Atla was by far teh best healer in our group. it seemed she made up for her lack of endurance by having a high casting skill, her spells alone were more powerful than mine where when I boosted them with my shield. I switched to White Wind Shield and turned on the healing aura, which granted a boost to my healing spells, then cast Esuna and then Fast Heal in rapid succession on the child. 

It took a few tries, but the plants eventually withered and faded away, and the child returned to better health. Atla and I went through the tent, healing the sick with our magic. I gained some nice levels with the Proficiency Gauge so I didn't consider it a loss at all. I also did not intend to do it for free.

"Thank you so much!" the village elder cried at me when I finished healing the last of them. 

I watched in amusement as Fohl carried his sister back to the wagon to rest even as she protested that she wasn't tired yet. It was sweet watching how much he cared for her. 

When I looked back at the village elder and his wife, flanked by the leaders of their village, they were all on their knees with pleading looks on their faces. I sighed inwardly, already seeing where this was going. I'd fed the dogs and now they were coming back for more.

"Please, Hero of the Shield! Save our village!" they pleaded. "We'll pay you everything we have, just please kill that plant-monster for us. We have no-one else to ask!"

_:I guess this makes two times I'm going to have to go along behind those idiots and clean up after them!:_ I thought, irritated. _:I'm not their mother! Thank the Gods of the Multivereses that Amaki seems at least a little more sensible than the other two!:_

Before I could begin to entertain the notion about turning him down, however, my shield pinged at me. it was a really strong ping, and a window notification popped up at me.

**Analysis Complete!**

**Yggdrasil Elixer Ingredients:**

  
**Dragons Teeth (powdered 5)**   
**Mandragora Queen Seed (compressed 5)**   
**Gryphons Tongue (boiled 5)**   
**Fire-lily Nectar (distilled 5)**   
**Sunbeam Dew (distilled 5)**   
**Shadow Hearts (compressed 5)**   
**Rainbow Crystal (powdered 1)**

_:Seven ingredients?:_ I thought to myself in surprise and wonder. _:I'd thought the most ingredients that any potion could be made with was four!:_

And this thing needed five of each kind of raw material Processed into an ingredient. I'd seen the prices for the raw materials to make this compound on the market, and they were something that would make a king wince and check his pocketbook. That wasn't even counting the fact that I would need to successfully compound them. This potion was no joke.

_:Still, I promised I would, and Atla's helping out my team as much as she can, despite her condition. There must be some way to get a hold of these ingredients without needing to sell us all into slavery.:_

Then I looked over at the desperate villagers and a lighbulb went off.

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to know where I could get some of these supplies, would you?" I said, writing out my list.

The village elder paled when he looked at it.

"These kinds of materials would beggar a king!" he exclaimed. 

I waited.

"But," he added reluctantly. "The alchemist shop in our village carries the Gryphons Tongue, the Fire-lily Nectar, and the Sunbeam Dew, but only in raw form."

"Also," the elders wife piped up. "If you defeated it, that plant might have the seed of the Mandragora Queen. At least, according to local legend."

_:Local legend huh?:_ I thought. _:I wonder if any of their local legends also **warned** them about magic seeds. Oh well, none of my look-out.:_

"I'll do it," I said. "I'll kill that plant-thing and save your village, even if it means I have to clean up behind that moron Motoyasu. I'll even leave you with the funds you'll need to spend restoring your village. In exchange, all I ask is that you allow me to enter the village alchemy shops and take the materials or processed ingredients for anything on this list."

"That sounds more than fair!" the village elder said eagerly. 

"It does not!" a portly fellow, who must have been the village alchemist said in outrage. "I spent three years worth of my earnings on those ingredients!"

I was already bored of this.

"That's my condition, work it out between yourselves," I said.

The alchemist was taken aside and a low but urgent discussion ensued. It all likely boiled down to 'you can't use those ingredients when the village is over-run by plant-monsters anyway, at least this way you'll get your shop back.' Either way, they came back to me with an official sealed writ allowing me to take those materials I had specified as payment for my service. We signed off on it and I turned to Gyousou.

"Gyousou, looks like we've got a village plant-monster to slay," I said. 

_:And a village alchemy shop to loot,:_ I added silently.

"Somehow, I should not be surprised," Gyousou said, sighing a little.

"Oh lighten up, old man! Do it for Atla!" I cajoled him. "I'm not even demanding real pay on this one. Technically I didn't for the last job I took on either. If anyone should be put up for sainthood here, it should be me."

"I shiver to think what they would make you Patron Saint of," he said dryly.

Since this was typical behavior for me, and I wasn't putting up any resistance to doing the part as a Hero, Gyousou let my mercenary zeal pass by with little comment and we all headed down to the village. To see about slaying a plant monster.


	36. Mandragora Queen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Our Heroes Slay a Monster, Loot a Shop, and Get One Over on Someone Who Deserves It

The small, one-street village with its single town square was completely overrun by vines of all sorts; some with fruits, some with flowers, some with weird tubers popping out of them. There was a large tree that looked a lot like a banyan with a huge flower that looked like it had an eye growing out of the middle of it sprouting up out of the square. I knew from my high-school botany class that the tropical "tree" that was called the banyan was not actually a tree at all, it was a parasitic plant called a Strangler Fig that had attached itself to a tree and eventually taken it over.

_:Looks like the same situation here,:_ I thought as I noted creepy near-statues of people that the strangler tree had caught in its vines, possibly issuing a parasitic poison, and it appeared to be using them for sustenance! Yikes!

As soon as we approached, the vines started trying to attack us, shooting up from the ground to attempt to wrap around us. Raphtalia darted in and stabbed the eye with her sword, but another one quickly regenerated. I tried casting Esuna on it, hoping the detoxify it, but it had no effect. Gyousou poured plant-killer on it, and it melted through a vine, but that vine quickly regenerated as well. It was quick too, and there were a lot of vines to attack us. 

"It looks like the usual strategy won't work this time," Gyousou muttered as the tentacle-vines started weaving around us.

If I pulled it's aggro it could come from all sides and overwhelm me before my teammates could dispatch it. Plus it regenerated too quickly.

"Any suggestions?" I asked my team as the weapon-wielders as they swiped at the vines trying to entrap us. 

"You could try to pull its attention to you as usual, we will keep attacking as it regenerates, pouring this herbicide on its core each time," Gyousou said. "If all goes well, that might whittle it down enough for us to kill it."

I nodded then rushed in closer, using my provoke skill to focus its attention on me. I was quickly wrapped in vines and held up but I did not let it's aggro go down at all. Even when the vines closed over me, entombing me in darkness (which I''ll admit, was certainly worrisome. Okay scary. It was scary!). Smaller vines with prickers long enough to more accurately be called needles slithered in and pierced into my flesh. My body went numb all over, like I'd been given a shot of novacaine, and I started to feel sleepy. Even so, I didn't stop hitting my provoke skill every time it went off cooldown, and I kept that meter on red. 

Peripherally I was aware that my team-mates were attacking it outside of the shell, but I couldn't see them because I was entombed in a bark-prison, and I could only hear them very distantly. Also, everything felt muffled because of the poison. Probably the only reason I hadn't succumbed already was that I'd equipped my Nue-Shield that I'd gotten off the Chimera from the First Calamity Wave that I'd found dead, scavenging after the Heroes near Lute, and it had a poison resist-skill that I'd spent some points leveling up. 

It felt like both a small eternity and no time at all when I heard Raphtalia frantically calling my name. I wasn't sure if I answered, I might have even been drooling. Either way the bark prison was pried open and I was pulled out, supported on either side by Raphtalia and Gyousou, which was good because I was still to numb for walking.

They fed me cure potions and let me rest in the sunlight until the last of the dizziness passed. I sat up and looked around. 

"Why is there a naked little girl over there?" I asked in confusion. "Am I hallucinating?"

It was hard to miss after all. There was the dying husk of the tree but right in the center of it sat a blonde-haired, blue-eyed little girl of about six years, calmly snacking on fruit and humming to herself, but without any clothes on. 

"Believe it or not," Raphtalia said as Gyousou went to go and put his cloak back on the girl. "That little girl, is Filo!"

I stared in disbelief, certain that the poison had made me hallucinate.

"Filo. The Bird," I said dumbly. "The bird who pulls our cart, that Filo?"

"Yes!" Raphtalia said. "I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes, but when you disappeared into the plant, little Filo went kind of berserk. All of her feathers all fluffed out and she charged in like she'd was enraged, and then she talked! She told the plant that it wouldn't eat her master, because Filo was going to eat _it_ first. She swallowed the flower-eye in one gulp, and then when it grew back she ate it again. She just chowed down on it, while the rest of us hit it with herbicide, and eventually it didn't grow back any more."

"Yeah," Fohl chimed in. "Then she sat down, burped, and poof! She changed into that little girl over there."

"Huh," I said, still a little numb from all the poison. "Well... ain't that something."

"I think she's still out of it," Raphtalia said. "We'll have to take her back to Atla."

Instead I stood up and walked towards the village, the effects of the poison quickly fading.

"Hey, where're you going?" Fohl asked. 

"I have a shop to loot," I said. "That village promised me alchemy materials and I intend to see that they don't sharp me my due."

"That sounds more like her," Raphtalia said, sighing a bit. "I guess she must be feeling better."

I found the shop I was looking for with the mortar and pestle hanging over the door and pulled off some of the dried out vines until I could open the door. Despite the chaos outside, the interior was spotless except for the dust. There was a rickety stair leading to the sleeping quarters for the master and apprentice alchemists and the rest of the downstairs was devoted to the business.

It looked a lot like the depictions of the old Chinese apothecary shops I'd seen in TV dramas. The walls were lined with tiny, neat drawers holding herbs and ingredients, banks of shelves with bottles of essences, bunches of herbs bundled neatly on racks in the ceiling. Three copper stills held pride of place along the back wall and in one corner was a fairly modern-looking stove with a range on top and four cauldrons resting on it. All in all, it was a tidy little place set up for slightly larger-scale alchemy business. 

_:With a set-up this large in a town this small, he must export most of what he makes if he wants to turn a profit,:_ I mused, still a little muzzy-headed from the poison,though my thoughts were beginning to clear. Slowly.

_:Or maybe he's one of those research-and-development types of alchemists, who craft new recipes and sell the recipes on for money.:_

I started making my way slowly through the shop, checking all of the drawers and bottles with my Alchemy Shield to ascertain the ingredients (I wasn't silly enough to trust whatever the shop-keep had written on the labels). I found lots of new ingredients I hadn't learned yet (and set my shield to analyzing a tiny pinch of now that all of my Sheild's processing power wasn't being taken up by analyzing the Yggdrasil Elixir). What I did not find, however, were the ingredients that I'd been promised were here. I was about to give up, figuring that he must have sold them on without realizing it, but my instincts made me pause.

_:That shopkeep was really, really vehement that I not go looking for them,:_ I mused. _:I'd understand him being worried about taking a huge financial loss by letting me have the ingredients for nothing, but the village elder promised to reimburse him after the harvest with interest and he still said no.:_

That sounded to me like a man with something to hide.

"Hawkeye," I muttered, activating my shields eagle-vision skill. 

Just as in AC Black Flag, my Hawkeye, which had upgraded with an additional perk when I upgraded my Stealth Shield, revealed not just enemies but also hidden compartments and doorways and secrets within architecture, and furniture, of a room.

"Jackpot!" I celebrated, as a spot just on the underside of the shops little safe lit up blue, alerting me to a secret compartment and the mechanism to hide it. 

I had to work a bit to get the trigger to catch, then use my Lockpicking Shield to pick the lock on the little door sealing away the hidden compartment, but I managed to crack it after a little work. 

_:I **knew** spending the EP to level up the Lockpicking Shield to an Uncommon would come in handy!:_ I congratulated myself. 

I couldn't call myself a gamer and not love loot after all.

"Oh, _my_..."

I paused, then carefully began pulling out the contents of the hidden compartment, one by one, carefully checking fro traps or any nasty surprises as I examined each item. There was a large, locked journal crammed with notes (which I naturally unlocked). I unlocked and collected a locked, segmented tray-box with a collection of odd but familiar looking seeds. The bottom of the hidden compartment was taken up by a locked chest the size of a fishing tacklebox that, when unlocked, opened out with many segmented trays on hinges like a tacklebox. The tiny sections were all filled with raw alchemy materials.

"Holy cannoli!" I muttered as I looked more closely at the contents of the box with my Analyze function.

It was full of rare alchemy materials. _Really_ rare ones. Like I'd heard of some of them by reputation, but some of them were almost considered to be a myth. 

_:Something doesn't add up here...:_

If this alchemist was wealthy enough to afford even half of these rare materials, why was he only the keeper of a modest shop out in the middle of no-where? He'd be much wealthier catering to wealthy clientele in the city. And if he had a wealthy backer buying these materials for him, what did the wealthy backer want him to do with them? It was suspicious.

I was distracted, however by my shield pinging at me. I reached for one of the familiar-looking seeds and unlocked 

**Bio-Plant Shield +1: Uncommon 1/40**   
**Ability: Mutation**   
**Mastery Lvl: 1**   
**Equip Bonus: +.1 Intelligence**

The shield popped open a menu that showed me the different properties of the plant-seed I'd input, and all of the ways I could mutate it to refine the properties I wanted while weeding out those properties that I didn't.

_:Wow. Masanto would kill to have one of these!:_ I thought humorously. 

It turned out that the seed I'd input was the Mandragora Queen Seed and that it had an unusual property called Synthesis. Looking through the info menu on my shield informed me that the "synthesis" property in the Mandragora Queen plant meant that it could absorb the physical and magical attributes of any _biological_ material and then replicate it in it's body and fruits. 

My wheels, feeling like sludge because of the poison, were nonetheless slowly turning. I skimmed through the journal with these items to confirm my suspicions. Sure enough, it detailed the research done to find a Mandragora Queen seed that had been developed by a mad alchemist years ago, then sealed away in a cave nearby for the sake and safety of posterity. The alchemist had used Motoyasu to unearth the seed from the old ruins so he could get hold of it to try and unlock it's secrets. The last few chapters were a catalogue of desperation and despair as the experimental seed had quickly mutated beyond the alchemists ability to control, then slowly over-ran the town. 

I glanced at the trays full of exceedingly rare and expensive ingredients and then at the Mandragora Queen seeds. 

_:Looks like someone's plan back-fired, badly!:_ I thought. 

The alchemist, and whoever was backing him, had clearly planned to use the Synthesis ability in the Mandragora Queen plant to absorb and replicate these rare materials which they could then harvest in bulk, then process and sell the synthesized ingredients, either as raw ingredients, or mixing up elixirs themselves, for ungodly amounts of money. 

_:Except that the Mandragora Queen is obviously **too** adaptable, and instead of obediently absorbing and replicating only those materials that the alchemists wanted, they absorbed everything that it came into contact with, including people!:_

Then it had grown out of control.

_:Like that one guy on Jurassic Park said, "life finds a way." And did it ever!:_

Curious about what I could use the new Bio-Shield to do, I used my new Bio-Plant Shield to adjust some of the properties on one of the seeds, increasing its yield productivity, while decreasing its active mutation abilities. I took the seed out into the yard and planted it, then waited and watched as a small, hardy shrub grew out of the ground then burst with red, delicious looking fruit. The ground beneath it swelled from the tubers storing carbohydrates.

_:Well that's good then,:_ I thought pleased with my experiment. 

I wasn't going to pretend I wasn't a bit pleased at doing something better than Motoyasu, not that it was hard.

Then I glanced back at the contents of the compartment all laid out neatly, and then at my new Mandragora Shield and a glimmer of an idea began to occur to me. I had a thought that maybe I could succeed where these Alchemists had failed if I used my Bio-Plant Shield to modify the Mandragors Seed's synthesis property. 

_:Nothing ventured, nothing gained, I suppose. And I did promise Atla that I'd make her her new medicine.:_

I popped another of the Mandragora Queen seeds from the Alchemists secret stash of them into my new Bio-plant Shield. The settings menu popped up on my vision and I started playing around with the features, downgrading a number of the plant's other properties so that I could upgrade its synthesis property while still unlocking proper precautions. When I was satisfied with the core properties, I popped in one of the rare Alchemy Ingredients from the tray at random, a Dragon Fang into the box marked Mutate.

I got a progress bar and had to wait for a bit.

"Master!" the little-girl version of Filo, greeted me. "I eat the yummy berries!"

I looked over at the former Mandragora Queen plant with hundreds of seeds hidden away in its hard, poisonous, acidic, red fruit. The outer rind of the fruit was hard as iron, and the fruity pulp could melt through a bus, but the pit-seed in the center was a valuable Alchemy Ingredient. It looked like Filo had inadvertently provided a way to bypass the protections around the valuable seed, which had stymied other alchemists until now.

"What is this kid made of?" Fohl said in awe-filled amazement.

Apparently he'd given up on trying to big-brother the stubborn bird-girl into _not_ eating poisonous fruit.

"Filo, don't just go sticking whatever you want into your mouth," I said, absently. "I don't care if your stomach appears to be made of cast iron or not, you could still get sick if you eat too much."

"Kaaaay!" she agreed, then poofed back into her bird form, ripping Gyousou's cloak in the process.

My shield pinged at me, reporting 

**Mutation Complete!**   
**New plant created: Dragon Fang Mandragora.**

The full-sized, holographic display of my new species of plant had dark purply-black leaves that resembled dragons wings with a spindly, smooth-barked black trunk and plump dark purple fruit reminicent of plums only somehow sinister-looking. Spiking out of the fruit-segments were small, white, fang-like spikes. Dragon's teeth.

_:I wonder if it will somehow have the same alchemical properties as an ordinary dragon fang from a real dragon,:_ I thought.

That would be both awesome and terrifying.

_:I wonder what the catch is,:_ I thought as I pulled out the seed and planted it. 

When I went to plant it with my Farmer Shield, however, my shield buzzed at me, making a flat sound of negation. A notification popped up telling me that I could not plant that seed here. Curious, I looked up the reason why in the Help Menu, and was informed that this Mandragora required Dark Mana to function and it could only be planted on a node where two ley-lines of Dark-type mana intersected. 

I looked at all the Mandragora Queen seeds. My Harvest Shield had a way to strip them easily. I had just "acquired" a lock box full of rare ingredients. It looked like my Bio-plant shield would allow me to succeed with that operation where the other Alchemist(s) had failed.

"Alright people, lets load up all of these seeds!"

My teammates gave me an odd look for wanting barrels and barrels of poisonous fruit but humored me. Gyousou seemed to think I might be removing acidic fruit before it could cause more trouble. You'd think he'd know me well enough by now to realize that I had a plan in mind.

I gathered the Alchemists secret stash and carefully wrapped it up in my cloak before we headed out to return to what was left of the village with news of our success. I'd just take those seeds and lore as payment. It's not like the Alchemist could say anything about it. He'd hidden them away in a secret compartment and they were listed no-where in his official records. If he tried to protest, I had the kind of blackmail I needed to make him back off. 

_:There's enough rare ingredients here to make a fortune outright,:_ I thought happily. _:If I can get these seeds to work the way I want them to, I'll have my fortune several times over!:_

We all headed back to the settlement palisade, Filo transforming and de-transforming on a whim along the way. We stopped trying to get her to wear our cloaks to cover up with as they only got shredded when she transformed back into her bird-form.

_:Just when I thought things couldn't get weirder,:_ I thought to myself.

"What's in that trunk you took from the Alchemist?" Gyousou asked me quietly as the rest of the team walked on ahead.

It figured he'd notice, it's not like I could pull one over on him. So I told him about what I found in the alchemists secret compartment and the conclusions I'd reached about what had really went down there. Gyousou frowned a bit and sighed, then in a resigned tone said

"You have some kind of master plan in mind to profit by this, don't you?"

"Of course," I said scornfully.

He sighed again then said in a serious tone

"Alright, I'll let it slide. But on two conditions."

"What's that?" I asked.

"Condition one, you use that new shield of yours and some of these seeds to donate some of your tamed fruit trees to the town to live off from."

I opened my mouth to object to the charity.

"And two," he overrode me. "You will not let any of your experiments grow out of control in this fashion."

"Fine to the second, of course," I said. "But I'm not a charity outfit."

Gyousou looked at me in reproof and I sulked for a minute then said

"Fine. I'll charitably donate some tamed seeds to the village. I guess they should get some compensation for their troubles since it looks like the alchemist is going to get off scot-free."

"That wasn't so hard, now was it?" he said dryly.

I ignored him and surreptitiously loaded the trunk into my wagon when we got back to the palisade-town. The village elder and his wife were thankful and my team was well fed by the grateful village. I ignored the celebrations for the most part and spent much of the evening perched in the wagon, using my Bio-plant Shield to combine the Mandragora Queen seeds with tiny portions of the rare alchemy ingredients in the trays in the locked alchemists chest to create new Mandragora types that could be stored in my inventory so i wouldn't have to carry it around in the cart. Some of the ingredients wouldn't combine, no matter what I tried, and all of them had an elemental ley-line nexus restriction (it looked like none of them could even grow without the presence of magic) but I was pretty pleased by my work, all things considered. If I found a place to plant these, I could rake in the money by selling rare ingredients.

I then switched to my Uncommon-level Alchemy Shield and, after checking to make sure that my Mastery-reset was on automatic (meaning it would automatically convert max mastery to EP and reset the gauge to rollover my Proficiency), I started Processing the lowest level of the rare alchemy materials into ingredients. As I had thought, because of the high rarity of the materials I was working with, one successful processing nearly maxed out my Mastery. Two of them got me over the top and halfway to my next max-out. Eight of them got me enough EP to spend 10,000 EP to bump my Alchemy Shield Up to Rare. 

I discovered that using a Rare-level shield made my Compounding and Processing success rates noticeably higher. Also, I had access to master-level potion-Compounding. However, it looked like the Yggdrasil Elixir might still be just beyond my grasp. A potion like that needed Adept-level mastery to compound.

I did a little math in my head. Though it took longer, even with higher-level ingredients to work with, a Rare shield, when it masteryset provided 2400 EP (which was a ratio of 40 EP per reset as opposed to 20 EP per masteryset from a Common). It would take me a little over 20 masterysets to gain the 50,000 EP needed to bump it all the way up to Epic, which was what I needed to be able to craft Atla's medicine. 

I looked at the lock-box with the tray upon tray of rare, high-level ingredients in need of processing. Even if I didn't Compound potions with them, Processing them alone might get me where I needed to be. Determined now, I set to work with the goal of processing enough of the ingredients to at least get me my Epic-level rarity Alchemy Shield.

I had just packed everything away for the evening and was about to lay down when Atla hissed at me in a signal that there was a potential threat nearby.

I readied a fireball spell and pulled back the curtain on the wagon to investigate the threat. Approaching the wagon was a well-dressed man with a sword that looked more for show than use. The clumsy way he tried to draw it on me told me that he didn't draw it very often.

"Who are you?" I demanded, already half guessing.

"I see you've retrieved my valued possessions for me," the Alchemist said in a sleezing tone. "Hand them over like a good girl, and no-one gets hurt."

"What possessions?" I said, affecting clueless innocence.

"Amusing," he sneered. "But you surely don't think you'll actually get away with stealing thousands of golds worth of materials do you?"

My eyes widened. Golds? That was the this-world equivalent of millions. Yikes. Still, I played it cool.

"I think that if you're really smart, you'll see that this was the best thing for you, really," I replied. "Imagine how angry the people would be if they found out who was _really_ responsible for the destruction of their village. Angry enough to lynch, certainly. I did you a favor. Now there's no evidence tracing this whole _unfortunate_ affair back to its real origins."

The Alchemist visibly paled. Then I presented my book-copy of his journal that I'd taken from his secret compartment.

"Oh. And I'd destroy the original of this sooner rather than later if I were you," I said. "You're getting off easy. You'll have your shop and your reputation, and most importantly, your life."

He got even paler, if anything.

"You don't understand," he muttered, sounding like he was going to cry. "I had to borrow money for this, to get the supplies I needed. Money from some... really bad people. They'll want to see a return on their investment. If I can't produce... oh gods... what's going to happen to me?"

"Sounds like that's your problem," I said unsympathetically.

I'd meant it when I'd said he was getting off easy. This man had gotten his Alchemists certification, he _could_ have settled for a modestly well-to-do life, making a modest fortune with his work... but he'd gotten greedy and his greed had destroyed an entire town and ended lives. People were dead because of what he'd done, and I was only helping him cover up his crimes because it served my interests to do so. I didn't care if he lived or died. 

He sagged in defeat and just sort of wandered off in a daze. Atla looked at me with strange, blind eyes and said

"You should have handed him over to justice."

"Nah. He wouldn't get justice here," I said. "And I'd rather have not his blood on my conscience. I just hope this doesn't come back around to bite me."

Then I paused.

"On another note, Atla," I said, realizing I hadn't broken the news yet with everything else going on. "I have good news for you."

"What's that?" she asked curiously.

"Thank to the unwilling generosity of our alchemist friend here, I have the materials we need for your Elixir all Processed," I informed her, then added. "Well, all of them _except_ for the powdered Rainbow Crystal. It's both rare and not a bio-agent so this man didn't have any in his shop. My Shield is all leveled up and waiting. We should have your medicine soon!"

Even though she was mummified by bandages and I couldn't see her face, I could tell she was overjoyed with the news. 

"Really?! You really mean it?" she asked, jubilant with excitement.

"If everything goes well," I said. "We'll need to head over to a large town or city anyway. Filo's transformation has added an unexpected complication. I can't very well parade around anywhere with a naked little girl unless I want people thinking all the wrong things about me again, so we need to to see if we can't find someone who can make clothes that transform when she does somehow. I'd imagine that the kind of town that can support such a specialized business as a magical tailor can also supply some powdered Rainbow Crystal."

"I'm going to be healthy!" she murmured, sounding dazed.

"I hope," I said cautiously. "We don't know how effective this potion's going to be, but I doubt it can hurt."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy, time just get's away form you doesn't it. Thanks to all those who reviewed, and sorry it took so long to post this, I'm lazy.


	37. The Filorial Queens New Clothes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In Which Filo Needs New Clothes and Yuka Hunts For the Final Ingredient For Atla's Medicine

We set out the next morning bright and early, leaving the grateful villager behind. Oddly enough, the Alchemist was no-where to be found. I couldn't blame him, I'd have skipped town too. I hadn't pushed things only because one, I'd wanted his supplies, and two, I really didn't think I had it in me to defend him from a lynch mob. 

The nearest city was about three days travel with our cart laden with Mandragora Queen seeds. I spent the time either processing the rest of the alchemy ingredients, using my Bio-plant Shield to combine the mandragora seeds with other materials to create new mandragora species or leveling up and improving my shields with the materials I'd collected. The Shields I used a lot in active battle, like the Cerebus Shield and the Prison Shield and the Chimera Shield I also modded with Motoyasu's menu. I also spent some time working with my teammates individually to try to improve their functioning roles in the party. They were doing well but that battle with the Mandragora Queen could have went better. 

We were all tired and dirty, and sick of being in the cart (except Filo) by the time we reached the city. I had never been so glad to see an inn before. We rested a bit, and I went out with Raphtalia and Filo to go and get her some new clothes that would transform when she did, because she'd ripped up all of her clothes and we we running out of capes to cover her with.

"Alright filo," I said as she changed back to her little-girl form. "Now this is very important. I need you to listen."

"Okay," she promised.

I knew better than that. Like birds and six year old children, Filo's attention span was not very big.

"You have to stay in your little-girl form, wearing that little dress we got you, until we get all the way to the dress shop," I said. "You can't change back and forth."

"Why not?" she asked. 

"It's fine if you're a bird, but parading a naked little girl through the streets will get me arrested," I said. "The dressmaker will need to take your human-shaped measurements so we can get you a new dress for your little girl form, so just stay a little girl until then."

"Okaaay!" she sang.

I sighed a bit but I'd done what I could. Raphtalia and I set out to the dressmakers shop, stopping at a food stall along the way to feed the cherubic little bottomless pit as a bribe to keep her in little girl form.

"Oh my!" the dressmaker, who looked like she'd be the poster-child for an otaku/loli fangirl in my world, exclaimed when she caught sight of our cherubic little hellion.

 _:Don't be fooled by that angel-face,:_ I thought. : _This kid will eat anything!:_

"Just look how cute you are! Such a little angel!" the dressmaker cooed. 

The dressmaker had a cat, which seemed like a bad idea given all of the balls of yarn in her shop. Filo hated cats. Filo spotted her cat, hissed angrily at it, and her form popped over to a huge feathered form in natural defense. I supposed I couldn't hold that against her, she'd honestly done better than I'd been expecting from her.

"You can see the problem," I told the dress maker as Filo's cloth dress went to tatters upon transformation. "We need a dress that will stay on her when she changes forms."

"Oh I'd love to help you and this _darling_ little dearie,"the dressmaker said. "But a dress like that has to be made with cloth woven from a special thread made with the wearers mana. Nothing else will do."

I nodded. It figured.

"You wouldn't happen to know anyone who could weave spin that kind of thread, would you?"

"There's a magic shop down the street," the dressmaker said. "You might ask there. But I promise, if you bring that cloth and thread I will make you the most adorable dress for this little angel that you have ever seen!"

"I'll look forward to it, hopefully," I said, wondering how much it was going to cost me.

"Can we have lunch?" Filo asked as we left the shop. "I'm hungry. I hate that cat. If that lady weren't so nice, I'd have eaten it!"

"I don't doubt that," I said dryly.

The nice middle-aged lady running the magic shop said that usually, she offered that kind of service as her nephew, the artificer, had made her a mana-weaving loom, but unfortunately the crystal the focused the mana had cracked and was no-good anymore. 

"What kind of crystal is it?" I asked.

 _:Please don't say Rainbow Crystal!:_ I prayed.

"The crystal I need is called Magicite, dear," the witch informed me, looking with interest at Filo.

"Yeees!" I celebrated on the spot. "I have some of that!"

It was one of the stones I'd mined from the mine in Itsuki's town, thinking I'd use it to strengthen one of my shields, or make an accessory out of.

"Well, that's wonderful!" the granny said. "There is one final thing, however. You would need to take it to an accessory-maker and have him grind it onto the right shape, I can't use one with any roughness to it, or the thread won't come out smooth."

I sighed with relief.

"I can do that too," I said. "I just need to see the shape-template."

The granny showed me what the old one looked like and I pulled up my accessory-maker shield. I hadn't made many accessories even though it was undeniably profitable because I'd been focusing so much on alchemy trying to get Atla her potion made up. Even though I wasn't practiced with that shield in specific, it used mechanics that were very familiar to me, so the process of grinding the crystal into a jewel went well. It only took me two attempts to get a jewel that would fit her loom. 

In less than an hour the granny was able to spin and weave the magic cloth for the dressmaker, and she even took the magicite stone in lieu of payment. Before we left the magic-granny's shop, I asked her

"You wouldn't happen to have or know where I could get some Rainbow Crystal would you?"

"Oh! That's a rare stone!" the granny said. "You'd need to talk to the Hakarron Jewelers in the Glass Quarter. They're the only ones I know of that might have a stone that rare on hand." 

We headed back to the dressmaker who had some kind of magic needle that worked as fast as any sewing machine I'd ever seen and in a half an hour Filo was outfitted in a cute little angel-dress to go with her little wings. While we waited, Raphtalia and I indulged our feminine sides by flipping through the modiste's fashion book and admiring the displayed dresses. We fed Filo snacks to keep her well behaved for the fitting and in about two hours we were able to walk out of the tailor shop with an adorable dress for our adorable girl. When Filo was in her little girl form it looked like an angelic sundress, and when she switched over to a bird, it became a cloth harness with a large pouch in front and two pouches like saddle-bags on her sides.

"You two can head back to the inn and rest up," I said as we stopped by yet another food stall to feed Filo. "I have a lead on the final ingredient we need for Atla's elixir that I want to follow up on. Hopefully, I'll return later tonight with good news."

"Alright,"Raphtalia said. "I wish you would come back with us and take Gyousou or Fohl with you. The city might not be safe."

"I appreciate the concern, Raph," I said. "But I'm just going to nip by the shop, make a purchase and come right back. No-one knows we're here int eh city, so it should be safe enough. I'll see you later."

Raphtalia and Filo went back to the inn while I went to the Glass Quarter to find those jewelers that the magic shop lady had spoken about in the hopes of acquiring the last rare ingredient needed for Atla's elixer. 

The shop was in the good end of town, the kind with fancy fountains and clean streets. And when I walked in with my worn, dusty Adventurers gear the shop-keep looked down his long nose at me and tried to shoo me off to some other, less discerning establishment. I glared, irritated. If this over-stuffed, poncy snot thought he was just going to pat me on the head and send me along, he had another thing coming.

 _:Prepare to be karen'ed,:_ I thought.

"I want to speak with the manager," I said in a demanding tone that brooked no argument.

Out of the back appeared a long-nosed thin man who somehow managed to look even more snooty than his assistant.

"May I _help_ you?" he asked his voice dripping with condescension.

"I've come to buy a Rainbow Crystal," I said trying hard not to grit my teeth. "I was told your shop might have some, though now that I've seen it... I have my doubts."

It felt kinda good to hit him back with his own medicine. The sour look on his face implied that it didn't taste very good.

"We only release our special stock from the back to a very _select_ clientele," he said, looking me up and down to mean that I was not on that list.

"Weird, never heard of a shop that won't sell what they've got to someone who can pay for it, but your loss I guess. I suppose It'll just have to wait until I get to the capitol."

I shrugged.

"A pity, as I'd hoped to have it sooner rather than later, but I suppose there's nothing to be done if a vendor isn't interested in taking my money."

I manifested my Coin Shield and laid two silver pieces on the table. His eyes widened. 

"A moment, miss!" the shop-keep said, suddenly stumbling over himself to be helpful. "I have just what you're looking for kept in the back. Let me go and get it for you."

I smirked smugly while the snobby merchant ducked into the back and came out with a rough, uncut stone. It was a crystal, alright, and it _was_ in different colors, but they were all swirled sort of messily together. It looked like an agate. I narrowed my eyes.

 _:It feels like he's tying to sharp me,:_ I thought suspiciously. 

Now, I'd never actually seen a Rainbow Crystal before, and even though this stone had lots of bands of color in it, it just didn't look to me like what I was looking for. Much as I'd hate to accuse an upstanding member of the Jewelers Guild of trying to con and unsuspecting mark, I had the feeling he was trying to switch out the real stone for another of much less value.

I looked up at the vendor, who still had his unctuous smile in place, but it looked a little stiff and he was holding his breath.

 _:Definitely trying to sharp me,:_ I thought flatly, already most of the way done with him. 

Still, I wanted that last ingredient. I'd give him one more chance.

"Are you _sure_ this is a Rainbow Crystal?" I said skeptically.

"What's the matter?" he asked a bit squeakily. "Don't you like all of the colors? I'll admit the quality of this stone is on the low end, if you're interested in paying more, we can show you some of the stones we keep for our most discerning customers."

_:I'll show **you** a discerning customer.:_

I changed to my Accessory-maker's shield and used its Appraise ability. Sure enough, the window informed me that I'd been given a common Banded Oilstone. 

"That's not a Rainbow Crystal at all,"I said flatly. "I'm reporting the fact that you just tried to sharp me to your guild and let them deal with you."

Instead of turning fearful the shopkeep just smirked and said

"These are grievous allegations to bring before the Jewelers Guild about one of their most respected craftsmen. Especially as there are no witnesses here to prove your claim and the one making the allegations is the infamous, criminal Shield Hero."

In other words 'who are they gonna believe, me or you' with the answer being probably him.

I just rolled my eyes tiredly, already done with having to deal with their nonsense.

"Ugh," I sighed disgustedly. "I'm over it."

I walked out and headed back to the inn without my Rainbow Stone. It looked like I'd used up all of my good luck earlier by having everything readily on hand to help make Filo's new dress. Atla and Fohl both looked at me hopefully when I pushed open the door but saw by my manner that I did not have the final ingredient. It was hard to see the disappointment on their faces, I hated that I'd let them down, even if it wasn't my fault. Everyday, this team felt more and more like family to me. Many days it felt even closer than family. I tried to smile reassuringly at them, but I was still angry about my treatment, and upset that it had meant that I'd let my team down.

"Let's just have dinner!" I said, hoping that filling my belly would soothe my temper. 

Later that evening, Raphtalia, Atla and Fohl were grouped on the floor trying to teach Filo how to play Advent when Gyousou came up to me in that quiet, paternal way he had and asked

"What happened?"

I briefly relayed the events in the nice jewelers shop and wound up the story with a tired "their loss I guess." Gyousou nodded agreement then said

"Much as it annoys me to have to brush this infraction against the law off, it's not in the interests of our mission to get bogged down in petty litigation. I do hope that they are eventually caught before they run their scheme on someone else, but we have other priorities."

"Agreed," I said. 

Instead of turning back to my shield to level it a little more as I usually did, I decided to join in with Atla, Fohl, Raphtalia and Filo to play the game they were playing, and since it couldn't be played well with odd numbers, I "ordered" Gyousou to join us claiming that it was a team building excesize. It was a fun evening, and it seemed to fill a little something inside of me I hadn't realized was hollow.


	38. Chapter 38

The next morning I took Gyousou with me to comb the alchemy and jewelry shops, searching for a Rainbow Crystal. I only needed one crystal for Atla's elixir. I already had all of the rest of the ingredients prepared ahead of time, so once I had the final ingredient, I could cure her. 

We went from shop to shop, inquiring about where we could find a Rainbow Crystal but one by one the shop owners regretfully shook their heads indicating that they didn't have a Rainbow Crystal and didn't know when they'd get one. I was about to give up, when an owner of one of the magic shops said that I might try a place Callinda's Cauldron. We got the direction to the establishment, which was on the better end of town and eventually we located the establishment. Callinda's Cauldron was a small apothecary and magic-shop combination run by a tiny old woman who looked well over eighty. Judging by the incredibly expensive decor of the shop and the wealthy neighborhood it was located in, she wasn't lacking for money, but strangely she had neither an apprentice nor a single customer in her shop. I found out why a moment later, as she turned to speak to us, I could definitely see a real case of dementia in her ancient eyes. She even called me Claire, which I assume was the name of a long lost daughter or something. Regardless, she eventually snapped out of it within a few minutes, and we did business. She placed a single crystal the size of a large marble on the table in front of me. It glowed with an inner light, brilliant colors swirling and sparkling like a nebula. I barely needed my Accessory-maker Shield's Asses ability to confirm it. We had found the Rainbow Crystal.

"Ma'am," I said, humbling myself to bow respectfully. "How much are you asking for this? I have been saving up as much as I can. I can offer gold for it."

"I will not sell it for money," she croaked.

I looked at her, puzzled.

"Then what are you asking for it?"

"There is a cave in the forest nearby. Inside of this cave is a shrine. The shrine hides the entrance to a deep well. This well goes down to the center of the world, it is said. There is no rope or ladder that will take you to the bottom and none of them can bring you back up again. You must bring me back the sweet, mystic water from the spring that lies at the bottom of this well."

She coughed for a minute then said

"I warn you fairly. None who have ever attempted it have been successful."

"Sounds simple enough," I said. "All I have to do is go down a nearly bottomless well to the center of the earth, and bring back a bottle of magic spring water. Then you will give me the Rainbow Crystal. Promise?"

"It is a promise," she said.

"Great, let's get going before she expires of old age," I said cheerfully.

"Yuka!" Gyousou chided me disapprovingly for my crack at the old shop lady's advanced age.

We hurried out of the shop and Gyousou said

"You know, we can just buy the Rainbow Crystal in some other town. It doesn't need to be right now."

"I know, but now it feels like a _challenge_ ," I replied humorously. 

After all of the ridiculousness I'd put up with lately, I was down for a little side-quest, and I thought I might have just the way to do it, too!

Gyousou sighed and followed after me as I made my way into a magic shop I'd visited earlier that specialized in magic crystals, those items that were like captured spells. I told the shop-keep to sell me all of the wind spell crystals he had on hand. It was a bit of a pretty penny, but if I was right it would be worth it. Right as we were about to leave, the shopkeep offered me a special item; a fan that, when opened would generate a good-sized breeze. He could have sold that to me in the first place! Still, I bought it (grumbling the whole way, but I supposed I couldn't blame his business sense).

"I take it that by this purchase you have a plan?" Gyousou said as we made our way out of the town gates and towards the forest.

"Yep, c'mon!" I replied.

We headed out to the place that the old woman had spoke of and found it easily, mostly by following the signs posted everywhere that told us not to go there. I ignored them all, and Gyousou liked the whole situation less and less as time went on. We got to the shrine and uncovered the well, peering down into a darkness so black it was almost touchable. The pebble we threw was so far a fall that it made no noise.

"Alright," I said, summoning up my Kite-Shield and boosting its Rarity for a new ability. 

In it's original Uncommon state the Kite Shield had come with an ability called "Glide" that reduced my weight by three-quarters of my body-weight and let me catch any updraft to move with so that I could sort of float gently to the ground. When I upped the shield's Rarity, I unlocked the upgraded ability Soar, meaning that it reduced me to _full_ weightlessness, and I could use even the faintest of drafts to push upwards, floating like dandelion fluff upon the winds.

"Good!" I celebrated, not allowing my nerves to show. "Well, down I go."

"You can't be serious," Gyousou said peering down into the abyss. 

"I have a hundred empty bottles in my inventory and a Kite Shield on my arm," I replied. "Yes of course I'm serious."

In conversation with Amaki, I'd gotten a tip off about a Create ability, which showed that if you had the raw materials in your inventory, and the schematic stored in your lore, you could create useful items. On a whim to try it out I'd once filled my inventory with sand and level one fire-shards from the Bouncies in the area, then used Create to make stacks of 99 bottles in my inventory, since I needed them for holding crafted potions anyway. 

Without further ado, I launched myself over the side. My Kite Shield made it so that I floated down gently, like a piece of feather-down on the wind. It was going to be a long time before I reached the bottom. I opened Party Chat and tagged Gyousou.

"I haven't used this before," I said conversationally, after I'd explained what it was. "I'm not sure if it works the same here, but in every game I've ever played before members of the same party can keep in communication with each other no matter how far apart they are, unless they're actively running a dungeon or in a cutscene."

"I'm not sure what those last two are but at least I can know you're alive," he said, sighing a bit. "I may be some time forgiving you for this stunt."

"Oh don't be mad," I said. "It's for a good cause. We're helping the poor crazy old shop lady achieve her dream of youth and immortality."

Because of course that's what she'd wanted magic water from the center of the earth for, youth and beauty.

"You're too reckless," he chided me. "You're often so very sensible and mature, that I forget you're also still a young person."

"That sounds like an opener to me, old man. Since we're going to be here a while, I still haven't heard it."

"Heard what?" he asked.

"Your story," I said. "You know all the sordid details about mine, but I still don't know how _you_ wound up _here._ And tied up as a slave no less. I promise that whatever it is, I won't judge you harshly, you can tell me."

Gyousou sighed and there was silence for a long minute and I thought he wasn't going to answer me, but then he said quietly

"I was... I am... a king."

I gasped in shock. I had not been expecting that! Being a king in the world of the Twelve Kingdoms a _big deal_ , even more so than in my world or this new one. In the world of the Twelve Kingdoms, where Gyousou was from, the rule of a kingdom was not something inherited like on this world and my world. Every king in the Twelve Kingdoms was,essentially, chosen by the God of that world, who I understood was called Tentei.

Youko Nakajima, who was currently the ruler of a kingdom in that world called "Kei" had had to explain to me how Tentei chose the rulers instead of rulers inheriting their thrones like they do in my world, mainly because the King of Kou had lied to me about it, but that was a whole other story. It turned out that the Kings of each kingdom were chosen by "kirin," or unicorn, which were shape-shifting magical beings that could take the form of a Human person, or a mythical creature that looked like a horse and had a magical glowing horn on it's head. I didn't exactly know the specifics of how it worked exactly, but the kirin got some kind of divine revelation from the God Tentei and that's how they knew who Tentei had chosen to rule the kingdom. There was only one kirin per kingdom, and they could only serve one Ruler at a time. Bun in Twelve Kingdoms, instead of a kirin having to pick a new ruler every few decades, their kings or queens are made immortal so long as they uphold something called the Mandate of Heaven. The World of the Twelve Kingdoms was bound and protected by "Heaven's Law" which was a bunch of rules about how a society and the officials who lead it are supposed to conduct themselves, and those rules came directly from the God Tentei. The Rulers of the Twelve Kingdoms were all bound to uphold and rule their Kingdoms in accordance with Heaven's Law, this was called The Way, or the Mandate of Heaven. If a Ruler broke their oath to uphold the Way, terrible things happened.

If a king lost The Way, which meant that he became a bad king who did bad things (like manipulate innocent school girls into trying to murder their friends and usurp their thrones, not that that's oddly specific or anything) then his kirin would fall deathly sick with a condition called "shitsudou." The Shitsudou was a warning from Heaven that the king had lost the Way and he'd better shape up or he was going to loose his throne, his immortality and his life... in that order. If that king chose to ignore the "warning" from Heaven of his or her kirin's shitsudou and continued doing things that flouted Heaven's Laws then the kirin would die, followed shortly by that kirin's ruler. Apparently the bad times didn't end with the death of the old ruler either. While the kirin was growing up and before it was old enough to find the next ruler of its kingdom, the land without a king would be ravaged by youma, which were demonic beasts that were really really hard to kill. Speaking from personal experience.

I'd heard from Youko, who'd heard it from the ruler of En, the kingdom next to Kei where she ruled, that there were kings who had been ruling their kingdoms, with the help of their kirins (I don't know what kirins did to help) for hundreds of years. Just hold old was Gyousou anyway?!

:No wonder he scolds like an old man all the time!: I marveled to myself. :He could be, like a _thousand_ years old or something!:

Still this was unbelievable! How could a kingdom _possibly_ have a ruler gone AWOL into another world entirely? Wasn't the kirin sick with shitsudou? Shouldn't Gyousou be dead by now? What was even going _on_?

"A king?!" I said in disbelief. "Like... like with a kirin and everything?"

"Yes," he said gravely. "Like with a kirin and everything."

"But then where's your kirin? Is he gone? Is he sick? Are you looking for him? What about your kingdom?" I asked, utterly unable to make sense of things.

"Taiki, my kirin, is... an unusual kirin, and this is made all the more so because he is a taika."

"A taika?!" I exclaimed in shock.

Taika was a word unique to the twelve kingdoms and it had no direct translation in our language. Perhaps the word "changeling" was close. The reason it was so unusual was that, unlike in our world, people and animals did not reproduce what I would call naturally. Every person and animal is born from a "ranka" which is a cross between an egg and a fruit. It's an egg in that it protects the growing fetus, and its a fruit in that it grows on a tree. Yes, humans grow on trees in the Twelve Kingdoms. It took me a long time to wrap my mind around it, but I supposed that a God could make the world he controlled as weird as he wanted if it pleased him. Anyway, "taika" refers to a baby in an egg-fruit ranka that is lost somehow and travels through a rift between worlds and is born from a woman in my world like a normal baby. Don't ask me how it got in there, my guess is magic. The mechanics of the whole thing are unclear, all I know is that it definitely happens because Youko was one of those lost rankas. She'd grown up in a normal family, thinking she was a normal person, then boom, one day gets chosen to rule a kingdom by a kirin. But that's a story for another time.

"How does a kirin get born from a human woman?!" I exclaimed in confusion. "Wouldn't that whole shape-shifting into a deer-looking creature sort of give it away? And how did he choose a king if he was a taika?"

"Perhaps it is better I begin at the beginning," Gyousou said.

"That might be a really good idea," I agreed.

"I had served the former king of Tai as the General of the Left of the Imperial Army. I had served with distinction for many decades and even had some small measure of renown outside of Tai. Myself and General Asen were called the Two Jewels of the Imperial Crown."

"That sounds like the beginning of a yaoi romance novel," I said frankly, still trying to come to grips with such a shocking revelation.

Gyousou snorted and continued

"The old king of Tai's reign was a lingering one; he would reform and then backslide, then reform and backslide again, so Tentei in his mercy let him continue to rule despite the fact that his extravagance and debauchery were bleeding the kingdoms coffers dry and allowing his court to grow rife with corruption and graft. I and my loyal officers had propped his throne up as much as we could, but it was difficult when he seemed determined to spend the treasury dry on his artistic whimsies. I began putting trusted aide's and officers in place at key posts around the kingdom to help us weather the next interregnum, which I knew would inevitably come when Tentei had finally decided that enough was enough."

"Wow, so forward-thinking too," I marveled.

From what I'd heard in the time I'd spent in that world, the times between when the old king died, and when a new kirin was born and chose a new king, called interregnums, were usually bad times for everyone but for the common folk most of all. Civil officials became corrupt, bandits acted with impunity, crops failed and disasters abounded as the kingdom lost Heaven's Law. Also, demonic creatures called youma appeared and ravaged the countryside! I'd seen one kingdom just getting started in their interregnum, and it already looked like some kind of ancient chinese-style zombie apocalypse movie but with demonic monsters instead of youma.

"So... what happened?" I asked.

I didn't know much about the other kingdoms, aside of Kei, which my ex-frienemy Youko Nakajima now ruled, and Kou which I had served the will of the ruler for. One of the Rules for Heavens Law said that the rulers of other kingdoms were not supposed to openly interfere in the affairs of another kingdom (yet another way that the King of Kou had lost the Mandate of Heaven). 

"When the former of Tai king died after his kirin had underwent shitsudou, a new kirin's ranka appeared on Mt. Hou and we all awaited the birth of Tai's new kirin so that our nation would know Heaven's Decree. However. Disaster struck."

"Ooh! Was it like Youko?" I asked curiously.

I was a little enthralled by the tale, as my parents had not bothered to read to me as a small child. Mostly, I'd read to myself.

"A world-storm came," he said in grave tones. 

I knew that a world-storm was some kind of natural disaster that magically tore open a rift between that world and my home world, and often pulled things, and people, through it. My friend Youko as a little infant was one of those things that had been pulled through. I couldn't really explain how she'd been born, however. Magic, I supposed.

"The world-storm blew through Mt. Hou and tore the kirin's egg away from the trees branches of the shashinboku."

"What's a shashinboku?" I asked quickly, unfamiliar with the term.

"The sashinboku is the magic tree that kirin's ranks grow from," Gyousou explained patiently. "In any event, the world-storm carried the ranka of the kirin of Tai it off to another world. Our kingdom mourned in despair, thinking that we would never again know the grace of Heavens Mandate. Our kirin was gone, and there was no other way to receive a new king. Without Taiki, Tai was doomed."

He lasped into silence for a moment so I had to prod him with

"Well what happened next?"

"I do not know of the events that befell Tai's kirin in the other world as in our time together we did not speak of it in the time I had ruled side by side with my Taiho," Gyousou replied. "But eventually, with many of the kirin working together, they were able to find Taiki, the Kirin of Tai, in the other world, your world Yuka, and bring him home to Mt. Hou. After a sufficient period of adjustment for the young kirin took place, the yellow flag to signal the Choosing of the King was raised for Tai, and the Pilgrimage could begin."

I frowned in puzzlement.

"Pilgrimage? What Pilgrimage? Don't the kirin come and _find_ the king?" I asked, confused all over.

I had thought it worked like the Heralds of Valdemar, where the kirin went out on Search and found their Chosen. That was what had happened with Youko, after all.

"Keiki came and kidnapped Youko without even a by your leave," I protested. "She couldn't even say goodbye to her mom. But you're telling me that the people go to this Mt. Hou place to visit the kirin instead? This sounds all backwards."

Gyousou chuckled a bit, sounding sad and explained.

"A kirin _can_ leave on Search to seek out the ruler that Heaven has chosen for them," Gyousou explained to me. "But that is usually only after all of those who would seek to know if they were found worthy of receiving Heaven's Mandate have already tried their luck by traveling to Mt. Hou to show themselves before the kirin. The Pilgrimage to Mt. Hou is made usually by the highest ranked, the most vain, or the most ambitious, persons who would rule the kingdom. Often too you will find that the most dutiful will also brave the dangers of the Five Sacred Mountains on their Pilgrimage, for who wants to allow their land to suffer for any longer than it must?"

"Oh, I see," I said. "But isn't Mt. Hou that one island in the very center of your weirdly-shaped continent?"

Seriously the map of their world is perfectly proportioned and the shape was not at all the random effect of continental drift like on my world. There are exactly twelve kingdoms done in a layout that looks like a compass-rose, with four kingdoms one to a point, then four kingdoms in between them, and last were four wedge shaped kingdoms on the outside corners. I had to try not to wonder if they were even a planet at all, or if they were some kind of flat world held up by the hand of their god, like Terry Prachet's Discworld or something.

"It is," he confirmed.

"I heard that Mt. Hou is supposed to be really, _really_ dangerous," I said. "Like it's full of all sorts of powerful mutant youma, and swarms of deadly predators, and lakes with poison and quicksand and acid, and every other kind of danger you could think of. How is it that people go parading through it?"

I heard Gyousou chuckle and say

"Very carefully."

I laughed. 

"It may not surprise you to learn this," he said. "But I had felt confident in myself that I was suited to lead our nation out of its civil war and debt and famine and poverty and into a better future."

"No. That does not surprise me at all that you felt that way," I said honestly.

"Cheeky," he muttered. "At any point, I was among the first to ascend the mountain and meet the kirin to see if I had the Ouki, the aura of the king."

"Oh! and he took one look at you and said 'there he is, there's my man! The perfect King!' "

No," Gyousou said. "That is not what happened."

"What?!" I exclaimed in shock. "But Keiki knew that Youko was his ruler right away! He was _very_ insistent on it. Even when I told him that she was spineless, and not a very good choice to lead a kingdom as she couldn't even lead the class, and that I was a much better option, he still persisted that she was his ruler."

Gyousou let out a surprised laugh and said

"Gods of all the worlds, that _does_ sound like something you'd say with that blasphemous mouth of yours!"

"I see no blasphemy in the truth," I replied.

He sighed a bit and got on with the story, saying

"If you recall how I said that Tai's kirin had been borne away to your world and spent his infancy and youth there as an ordinary human? Well, this meant that he really had no idea how to be a kirin. He thought the Ouki was something he should be able to see, instead of a divine knowledge that has a which presence fills him. So he met myself and the others, looking closely to see if he could spy the Ouki, but of course he could see nothing."

"So he sent you away?"

"He answered negatively, but his inborn kirin's instincts acted in the stead of knowledge, and he spent a great deal of time with me and the soldiers in my pavillion. One day one of my officers, a capable woman from Jou province who would later become one of my most trusted officials announced that, since we were on Mt. Hou, she planned to attempt to trap herself one of the superior mounts there, a white tiger mount with unsurpassed speed and ferocity. Since I had captured one myself some time ago I offered her my assistance to find and catch one. We set out and Taiki begged to come with us."

He paused and admitted

"The Nyosen, the sage-maidens of Mt. Hou who protect the young kirin, were not enamored of the idea, but allowed it albeit reluctantly. It was during that time that we fell into trouble and Taiki finally managed to subdue his first shirei. He'd had no luck at it up until then, not even with the little ones, and his continuing oddity weighed heavily on his heart."

"What did he get? A hanmei?" 

That, I knew was a water-youma that could not only change it's own form, but the features of whatever person it possessed.

"A toutetsu, a creature so rare many think it nothing more than a myth. It is fierce and powerful, and my kirin subdued it."

There was no mistaking the pride in his voice. Gyousou then told me the story of how, feeling desperate when Gyousou had announced that he would leave the mountain, Taiki, the kirin of Tai, had come and bowed down to Gyousou that night, making his oath to never abandon his throne.

"The Kirin choosing one of the Twin Jewels of the Crown as the next ruler of Tai was met with general acclaim, of course," Gyousou said.

"Of course," I said a bit dryly.

"It was good news," Gyousou insisted. "I have, well, had by this point, an excellent reputation in my kingdom."

"I'm not saying you didn't, I'm just making you aware that I know who's telling this story."

He sighed and said

"Well, unbeknowst to me at the time, Taiki had thought that he'd made up the whole choosing thing, and had just bowed down low and swore his kirin's oath just because he liked me and he hadn't wanted me to leave him behind on Mt. Hou."

"Oh," I said. "This is all a little confusing. Did he choose you or not?"

"He chose me," Gyousou said. "He just didn't know it..."

Gyousou continued the story of how he had sensed a shadow of unease and sorrow hanging over his kirin his kirin that he could not account for, and how it had finally come out how little Taiki truly understood about what he was. The the plan hatched with the insoucient King of En and the other kirins to reassure Taiki that there was no way he could have ever chosen the wrong person for king. for heaven would not allow him to bow his head to anyone other than his true ruler. 

Something about the story was nagging at me. Something about a boy being spirited away, like I was. Something about a boy being spirited away and returning.

 _:It couldn't be, could it?:_ I thought in wary mystification. : _I mean, that other boy who was spirited away? But weird things do happen around him...:_

After Youko had claimed her throne in the Kingdom of Kei (and I had thoroughly learnt my lesson, and wound up helping her in the fight instead) she and her kirin had Glinda-the-Good-Witch'ed me back home. When I went back to school I heard rumors about another person like me in our school, a boy who had been spirited away and returned like I had.

I'd tracked him down, Kaname Takasoto, and tried to get close to him, thinking to have someone I could share the extraordinary experiences I'd had int he other world with, someone who would understand and not call me crazy, because even though I'd left the other world, it hadn't left me. I was changed inside, and having a hard time adjusting to my old normal life. I couldn't even let the therapist, who's job it was to help people adjust to unusual circumstances, I couldn't let her help me, because I'd have had to tell her the truth, and she would think I was crazy. I'd needed someone who would understand, and I'd hoped that Takasoto would have been that person.

But he wasn't. He'd had no memory of the time he'd spent in the other world. At first I thought he'd been like me, just denying it and saying that he didn't remember anything else so that people wouldn't say he was crazy. But it turned out, he really didn't remember. Worse, strange things kept happening around him. People who upset him wound up in strange, inexplicable accidents. Even when I pushed at him, I'd seen what I could have sworn was a youma's paw come out of no-where while I was boarding the train and try to push me off. Only my assassin-trained instincts had saved me from a terrible accident. He was spooky, but I genuinely had wanted to be his friend, usually weather he liked it or not. Could he be Taiki? 

"Wait," I said urgently. "You wouldn't happen to know what his name in my world was, would you?"

"Yes, when I gave my kirin a name of his own aside of Taiki, I adjusted the characters for his otherworld name."

"What was it?"

"It was originally Kaname Takasoto, but I changed the character to make it Kouri."

"It _is_ him! I _knew_ it!" I exclaimed.

The information that my unwilling school friend was actually the missing kirin of Tai made a lot of things make more sense, but it was also frustrating. I personally knew the ruler of Kei, we were school friends (sort of friends, anyway, if friends had ever tried to murder each other). She, or her Kirin Keiki rather, could bring Kaname back to the world of the Twelve Kingdoms! If only I could reach her. But I was stuck on this world.

"You know him?" Gyousou said, surprised and intent. "How is he? Is he alright?"

I hesitated. It was honestly hard to say. He seemed okay, but there was something... something was off about him. My instincts more and more had been trying to warn me that he was dangerous to be around the longer I spent with him. 

"Kaname is... he's okay, as far as I can see," I replied carefully. "We're friends at our school, though we're in different parts of the building. I usually spend time with him while he's painting, it's his favorite thing to do. He did a painting of the world of twelve kingdoms, so that's how I knew he was from your world. But I thought he was just a normal person, I didn't know he was anything like as important as a kirin!"

"Thank the mercy of Tentei," Gyousou said fervently, sounding almost like he was praying. "I've been stuck in this wretched world and have not had even the smallest reassurance that Taiki was alive, much less that he's doing well. Does he... Does he seek me? Does he hate me for failing him, for failing our kingdom?"

I felt a pang of sadness for Gyousou, as it was obvious he was bracing himself for the worst.

"I thought kirin were incapable of feeling hate," I pointed out. "But no, as far as I know he doesn't hate you. Kaname told me he doesn't remember anything about his time in the other world, he says he doesn't even know anything about another world."

"He... he doesn't remember?" Gyousou said, a bit weakly. 

"That's what he says, but part of him does, I'm sure of it," I said in a cajoling tone. "He painted a picture and he says it's just something he made up, but I recognized it right away. It's a map of the twelve Kingdoms, of your world. He might not remember being the Kirin of Tai, but something in him remembers."

"This is truly a wonderous coincidence!" Gyousou said, sound both pained and joyful. "It feels as though Tentei has heard my prayers."

It felt like his words jolted right through me, like a lightning strike. My heart seemed to stop and it felt like all of the blood drained from my face. My memeory flashed at me, an image of _that_ morning, the morning I had disappeared from my world and was spirited away once again, summoned to _this_ world. 

I had visited the library and was browsing the fantasy section alongside a college-aged otaku-looking young man. We'd both reached for the same book at the same time and bumped into each other, and I'd taken the book when it had fallen to the floor and went to go and read it. I clearly recalled his mussy hair and green eyes and unassuming demeanor as we'd bowed politely to each other and parted ways.

Suddenly I _knew_. I knew with a bone-deep certainty that _I_ was not supposed to have been taken to this world. It was supposed to have been that other boy, well, young man, really. My fate had been exchanged for his. Some God, in some reality, had interfered, sending me to this world in his stead. It wasn't an accident. 

_:I'm the link!:_ I thought. _:I'm the one person who knows that Taiki and Kaname Takasoto are the same person. So however it is that Gyousou got here, something must have went wrong, perhaps?:_

"How did you get here?" I asked next, brow furrowed as I tried to unravel the mystery. "And why hasn't your kirin come and found you, if they supposedly can cross between worlds at will?"

"I know not, precisely," Gyousou said honestly. 

"So just, tell me the events as you know them," I said. "Maybe I know something, but I don't know that I know it, if that makes sense."

Gyousou made a small noise of agreement and launched into his tale. 

"Recall how I had spoken of myself and the other general, Asen, being seen as Twin Jewels of the Crown?"

"Yes," I said. "So by your tone I take it, he wasn't too happy with the choice, probably seeing as being a "twin Jewel" would make him just as good as you?"

"Exactly so," Gyousou said in a serious tone. "I only have a small part of the mystery. But... what I know is this. In the north of my kingdom, there is a province called Bun Province. I have a long and good history with that province that I shall not go into details about here. Suffice to say, I am, or was, something of a local hero to the people of that province. So, when a protest about the conditions of the mining operations there broke out into riots and the riots spread to an insurrection, I went myself to the root of the trouble, thinking to quell the riots and reassure my people that they could look forward to days of prosperity ahead with myself as their king."

I refrained from making a smart remark about his confidence. Gyousou, I had learned, was an interesting mix of humble in a straightforward sort of way, but also possessed of a confidence in himself that bordered on being arrogant, but somehow it never was. 

"So were you attacked by rioters? How did you get here, then?" I asked, dying of curiosity.

"The insurrection was a trap, to lure me away from the capitol--"

"You went by yourself?!" I yelped. "Are you crazy?"

"I did not go by myself," he said firmly, sounding slightly nettled. "I was accompanied by officers and troops that I trusted. We were going to quell a rebellion, after all."

He paused, clearly casting his mind back to the events.

"We were successful, at first, in breaking up the riots, but then, somehow, a strange mist appeared out of nowhere, even though the sun was shining. I became lost in the fog, separated from my companions, and the sound of battle grew distant. I looked around, trying to find my way back but every turn I took nothing looked familiar. Then, I saw Asen. He stood before me, clutching some bloodied talisman that shone with a sickly golden light. I was attacked on all sides by powerful fighters, and I accounted for many of them, but there were more than one man, even me, could fight off successfully. I was bound in chains. Asen would not explain why he was rebelling against me, nor what he intended to do with Taiki, who I knew was incapable of bowing to him to confirm him as the new ruler, and certainly not while I yet lived and upheld Heaven's Law."

"There are ways of making it look as though a kirin has chosen a false ruler," I said carefully, voice weighted with sadness. "But as far as I know, you need the cooperation of another kirin, which means, another king. The only king I know of who would willingly have done such a thing was the king of Kou. Perhaps... well, I suppose it's useless to speculate. What happened next?"

"A great and endless chasm, much like that well you have just foolishly thrown yourself down Yuka, opened at my feet. The end shone with a greenish light. I was pushed over the edge into it and I fell, or, perhaps I floated. It felt like both. In any case, I emerged from the other side through a rift, like the ones we fight during the Cataclysm Waves. There were many other youma emerging around me, but none that I recognized."

"You think the rift waves connect this world to other realities like yours and mine?" I asked curiously. 

"That is one theory I have," he said. "But I know not for certain."

"So Asen somehow managed to open up a portal between this world and your world, without the aid of a kirin. How did he do that, I wonder."

"Perhaps it was a freak world storm," Gyousou suggested, shrugging with his voice. "Like the one that bore the unborn Taiki away from Mt. Hou in the first place."

"If it was a freak world-storm as you call it, Asen would not have been able to plan things so carefully," I argued. "He'd have needed to capture you and hold you somewhere until a world storm came along for him to dump you in, all without anyone being able to find you. If I understand right, your kirin, always knows where you are, right? So that wouldn't have been possible without you getting found eventually."

"I know not the mechanics of the thing," Gyousou said tiredly. "I simply know what happened to me. The world-storm, or whatever it was, appeared, apparently at Asen's summoning. I know not how. I was bound and thown into it, and I wound up here. Bound and surrounded by youma."

"So you somehow crossed over in the first cataclysm wave," I surmised. "How did you wind up in that slaver caravan?"

"Bad luck," Gyousou said flatly. "I was bound in chains and disoriented when I first arrived, not to mention, I was surrounded by youma. I stumbled around, weaponless, looking for a place to hide as I could not defend myself. When the rift resealed itself and the youma spread out, there came a caravan of what looked like merchants, who beckoned me over, inviting me to share thier fire."

"Ooof! Tough break!" I said sympathetically. 

Very nearly the exact same thing had happened to me, Youko and Asano when we had first come into the world of the Twelve Kingdoms. Lucky for us, Youko decided to eventually listen to me when I said the lady was being waaay too nice to us, and maybe we should all step all the way back from her until we knew where she was planning on taking us.

"So the merchants locked me in a cage and tried to put one of their wretched marks on me, but... apparently I am still protected by Tentei despite the fact that I am not even in my proper world, and the slavemark would not take," Gyousou said. 

"From what I know of you, you're a very capable fighter," I said. "Couldn't you escape?"

"I tried to escape many times, and was successful a few," he replied. "But they possess both beasts and magic that can track like nothing I've ever seen before. As a general, I am already aware of most tricks and methods a fugitive might use to disguise their trail, but none of them have worked. I had prayed for a way to return to my world, probably inundating Tentei's ears. I would give anything to be able to restore my kingdom to the grace of Heaven. As time wore on..."

He took a breath and said quietly

"As time wore on I knew in my heart that the conditions of my kingdom would grow worse and worse the longer I was away. In a way, my existence was preventing the throne from being restored to Heaven's grace. As long as I was alive and unreachable by Heaven's Law on this world, Taiki could not choose another king. Tai would languish in twilight, overrun by swarms of youma, and subject to whatever hellish administration my usurper chose to put into place in my absence. If I stayed away much longer, Tai would be destroyed." 

It was unsettling to hear, confident, unflappable Gyousou sound so anguished. He was good at hiding it behind a calm facade but I could tell now that the loss of his kingdom and the suffering his people were undergoing while he was helpless to do anything about it ate away at him.

"I was nearly to the point when I had thought that my duty to my kingdom would require... clearing the way for my kirin to choose a new king." 

I stared in shock, realizing what he meant. A kirin could not choose a new ruler while their current ruler yet lived. Either the king lost the Way and the kirin underwent shitsudou killing them both, or the king "abdicated" in a permanent fashion. By killing themselves.

"But--!" I protested, shocked.

"For the good of Tai," he said firmly. "I love my kingdom. I would do nothing less than lay down my honor and my life for it. I would not have flinched from making a sacrifice that was absolutely necessary in order to preserve Tai's place under Heaven's Law. If I could not restore it myself, then I would step aside so that Tai might have a chance." 

He paused and said

"I had resolved to do the right thing upon my next escape, even with my immortality and near invulnerability, there are ways to do the deed, if it must be done. I had resolved myself to free Taiki to choose another ruler for Tai's sake... but then we met."


End file.
